Wartorn Episode I: Ground Zero
by Penelope B. Lane
Summary: Can an orphaned college student, a bitter Vietnam veteran, a mild-mannered office worker, and an abrasive biker hold out against a world gone to hell? And can an ordeal change them enough that the survivors can become friends--or, for one pair, more?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

No one knew where the infection started.

Nobody knew when, or how, or why.

The first reported case was in the Northeastern United States. The man came into the small country clinic outside Fairfield complaining of symptoms not unlike rabies. He came out of the hospital a raving madman, screaming in pain and rage.

And then he attacked.

The man was shot dead--they had had no other choice--and the four people he bit were given a rabies shot and sent on their way. Three days later, one bite had led to four infected, and the four infected polluted dozens of others. The sheriff didn't know what to do.

Years later, once some semblance of society had returned, Sheriff Jacob T. Peppersmith would be blamed for the outbreak. After all, if he had called CEDA when the mob had first showed up in his town, acting strange and attacking civilians, the pundits insisted that CEDA would have stopped the spread.

But the sheriff didn't call CEDA. He called his deputies, and between the panicked townspeople and the mobs of infected, Peppersmith didn't have a chance.

The plague swept the countryside. Zoey Harris didn't know about the infection as she set out in a cab from her dorm at York College of Pennsylvania. She was too busy fiddling with her iPod to notice the CEDA stickers on the walls that warned her about approaching unidentified individuals who seemed feral. She cracked her laptop open on the train and watched _Evil Dead _with her headphones on, oblivious to the conductors in their breath masks.

Rain slashed at the windows as the train eased into the station in Fairfield. Zoey glanced out the window at the platform; she instantly spotted her father. He was ramrod straight, standing in a thick woolen peacoat to withstand the November chill, and holding an umbrella to protect from the slushy rain. She glanced to either side, wondering where her mother was. Perhaps she had stopped for a cigarette.

Zoey gathered her things and, brushing her dark hair under the hood of her gray hooded sweatshirt. As she stepped into the rain, her father stepped forward to hold the umbrella over her. He groped for her bag and said, "I hope your trip was nice."

The college student knew better than to hope for a loving greeting. When he had sent her off for her first semester of college just three months earlier, he had shaken her hand and sent her on her way. Zoey smiled to herself at this and slung her backpack over her shoulder. "It's fine, dad. I can carry it. Where's mom?"

"Your mother isn't feeling well," said Mr. Harris. "I told her not to go out in this rain, but she needed more thyme. Or was it nutmeg? Whatever damn spice she needed."

"Oh." Zoey followed him towards the station. "I hope she feels better."

"I'm sure it's just a chill," said Mr. Harris.

"I hope so," Zoey said quietly, as if to herself.

Zoey knew Regina Harris too well to buy it. Zoey was being punished for her poor performance in her first semester of school. After a tirade of angry e-mails, phone messages, and letters (letters! Honest to God, ink-and-paper, letterhead letters!) it would be just her mother's style to make Zoey believe she was heartbroken and ill because of her actions. Zoey allowed herself a half-giggle as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. Her father's black town car was waiting.

As they sat in the back of the car and made their way towards the apartment block, Mr. Harris asked, "What has your college been doing to protect against the plague?"

Zoey looked at him curiously, then laughed. "Mouse traps."

"What?" Harris raised an eyebrow and shook his head sternly. "Good Lord, Zoey, it's a surprise that you even survive." He reached into the pocket of the driver's side door and pulled that day's newspaper out. He opened it and laid it across her lap.

Zoey's eyes widened at the headline: **MYSTERIOUS INFECTION STRIKES FAIRFIELD**. Underneath the headline was a gruesome image of two human figures, heavily disfigured, stalking across a sidewalk. A third figure was on its knees, half of its head missing with blood spurting from the wound. "Jesus Christ, dad."

"Language, young lady."

"What the _hell_ is that?" she said, thinking this was some kind of joke. "Jeez, dad, I get it. Too many zombie movies. God, could you try to be a little less subtle next time?" Zoey stifled a chuckle and folded the paper; she intended to knick the paper and stick it on her bedroom wall back at college with the rest of her horror film paraphernalia.

She looked up as her father stepped on the gas. They crossed an intersection, and Zoey saw in her rearview a mirror a group of protestors hoisting signs. One of them read: "REPENT! THE END IS NEAR!" Zoey's smile died on her lips and she looked at her father. "Is…is this real?" she asked, holding up the paper.

"Of course it is. Good Lord, why would I joke about something like that?"

Zoey ripped open the paper again and began to read the story under the banner headline aloud, skimming through. "…rabies-like infection…causes aggression, loss of mental faculties, violence…infection stages develop quickly…six to eight _hours_?"

"There've been some reports of attacks in Newberg, too. Even Riverside is starting to put up measures to quarantine the city."

Zoey looked out the window again; aside from the fact that there were very few people out on the sidewalks, and few cars, the city of Fairfield seemed normal. "Dad, what is Fairfield doing?" she asked.

"Nothing yet. The mayor and the city council are urging calm. Even that trained test dummy in the White House isn't doing anything. But your mother and I have installed a deadbolt so…everything will be fine." He smiled. "Your mother wants you to come back home. It's just not safe now, and besides, you don't seem to be very cut out for university just now."

"Dad, it's Thanksgiving, can we talk about this after I've had pie?"

"Zoey…"

The college girl made a dissatisfied grunt and glared at her father. "No, dad. We'll talk about this later."

Meanwhile…

The rain drummed on the window of the trailer, rattling the frame lightly. The noise didn't bother Francis Dixon. On the other hand, the massive hangover that rocked his skull and set fireworks off in front of his eyes every time he opened his eyes was quite bothersome. He wondered what he had done last night, aside from his usual bar trip.

The question was answered when her heard shuffling around in the bathroom. Francis opened his eyes, wincing in pain at the dull, diffused light of the morning hit him. He sat up and looked across his cramped bedroom; a pair of frilly pink panties lay discarded on the floor, a matching bra over the lampshade, a pair of leather heeled boots by the door.

Francis smirked to himself. Ahhh, yes. The headache was well worth it now.

There was another shuffle in the bathroom. Francis stood and pulled on a pair of clean boxers. He went to the door and knocked lightly. "Y'okay in there, uh, hon?" he asked, rolling his eyes. How could he have forgotten her name already? In his defense, it was possible that she had never told him.

There was a moan from the other side of the door. "Don't tell me you're going again without me," Francis called, reaching for the doorknob. He pushed it open, peering inside. He caught a flash of bloody vomit on the mirror and grunted. "My God, are you okay?"

A hand gripped the door and yanked it open. Francis immediately let go and stepped back as the woman who had shared his bed last night came staggering out. Her eyes, cloudy and white, stared at him; he wondered if she could see him. She sniffed the air and sighed, turning towards him.

"Arraagh!" she grunted and lurched at Francis.

"Jesus," shouted Francis, holding up a hand. "Look, I didn't make you come here. You came of your own--"

The woman grabbed Francis' arm and went to bite him. He pulled his hand back and shoved the woman back, his hands trembling. He'd never so much as swatted a woman who hadn't explicitly asked for it, and then it was only erotic spankings.

She roared and launched herself towards him, her hand coming up and aiming a punch at his chest. He dodged to the left and shoved her again as she went stumbling past. She collided with the wall near the door, spraying blood across the light switch and door. Francis went to her, grabbed her by the hair and forced her onto the ground, grabbing a nearby belt to bind her hands and feet. She thrashed and bit wildly, but couldn't find purchase.

Francis went to the bedside table and picked up the phone. He dialed 911 reluctantly; he hated cops. He received a pre-recorded message about circuits being busy. With a sigh, Francis glanced at the woman he had tied up with her own belt. "Sorry," he said as he sat on the bed and pulled his own black jeans towards himself. He threw on a wife-beater and the vest he had worn the night before and carefully walked past her into the living room of his trailer.

He called the police again and again found that they were busy. Cursing, he hung up and opened the door. The sight of the trailer immediately next door burning in the rain greeted him. "Holy shit," he growled and ducked outside. He hoped his neighbors weren't still inside; he wasn't in the mood for any hero bullshit.

"Barb! Jeff!" he shouted, running over to peer into the window.

"Over here," said Francis' neighbor, Jeff. "Sorry, we heard the struggling in your trailer and thought you'd turned."

Francis coughed. "Turned what?" he demanded.

"Into one o' them vampires," said Barb, cowering in her terry robe and bunny slippers. "You know. That infection."

Francis glanced back towards his trailer. "I didn't…but I think someone did. Is that why your trailer is on fire? Is that the only way to…?"

"Oh no. A pack of 'em got in while Barb was trying to light the stove," said Jeff with a grin. "I shot at 'em, and it caused a spark, and the whole kitchen went up. Thank God Barbie here didn't get all burnt up."

"You're pulling my leg," said Francis, looking back to the trailer. "Did you call the cops?"

"Tried," said Barb. "No answer. I guess they're off. Thanksgiving, you know."

Francis rubbed his eyes and shook his head. "Hell. Vampires running around and the cops are nowhere to be found. I _hate_ cops. Where are you two going to go?"

"Motel 6 up the road to Fairfield," said Jeff. "It sure don't feel safe out here in the park anymore, even if the trailer wasn't on fire."

"I'm going to see if I can find a cop to come and take care of this girl. She might be infected."

Barb's eyes fell. "Oh Francis. You know there's no cure."

Francis cleared his throat. "Well…gotta try anyway, don't I? I'm gonna take my bike and get the hell out of here. Good luck, you two." Francis went back to his trailer, trying to ignore the muffled roars of the woman in his bedroom as he grabbed his wallet. He stuck his handgun in the back of his jeans and hurried out to his bike. Barb, Jeff, and their ancient station wagon were gone.

Francis threw one leg over his bike, fired it up, and roared out of the trailer park, pretending that the lurching figures he saw every so often were joggers.

The next day…

"What is that noise?" Zoey demanded to no one in particular, burying her face deeper into the pillow, as if she could sink directly into the comfortable, downy surface and therefore be immune to the wretched banging that had woke her up. But it didn't stop. Zoey looked at the clock; it was blank. She looked at her watch; it was just after ten.

Finally she sat up in bed and strapped her watch on her wrist. The banging sounded like it was coming from down the hall and was reminiscent of the banging that Zoey's mother had used to rouse her from her sleep to get her to school on time years ago.

Zoey sighed. Maybe Regina needed her to peel potatoes or something. The young woman went to the door and opened it. The apartment was dark. She fumbled for the light switch, but the light didn't come on. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on edge as she heard a moan accompanying the banging down the hall.

"Mother?" she asked quietly. "Dad?"

Perhaps it was the darkness; perhaps Zoey just didn't want to see, but she could make nothing out in the hallway. She stepped into her room, picked up her iPod from her charging station, and flicked it on. The light illuminated her dresser and the wall. She held it in front of her and reached for the door, then made her way down the hallway.

As the double-doors that led into her parents' master suite came into view. Zoey had to recoil in fear. There was a ragged hole in the door, and a flailing arm was reaching through it. She thought she recognized her mother's dressing robe, but …

Zoey recognized the dark spots on her mother's robe as blood and reached out for the wall to steady herself. "Oh my God," she moaned. "Mom, are you all right?" She shone her iPod light source towards the door and reached for the handle. A growling roar from inside made her reconsider.

"Dad! Mom! Somebody!" she shouted, trying to peer into the hole, but it was no use: the only thing she could see was torn cloth and mangled flesh. The banging on the door must've been her mother's head banging on it.

Hyperventilating, Zoey staggered towards her room. She sat on the edge of her bed and put her head between her knees, gasping for breath. "Oh God." She closed her eyes, then as the banging resumed in earnest, she reached for the basket containing clean laundry. She pulled on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a white hooded sweatshirt before she began to pace her bedroom floor.

"Okay. Okay. Maybe she's sleepwalking. But what's with all the blood? Maybe she's got a fever? Maybe she's sick and she threw up and that's why there's all the blood. Dad said she was sick. She's probably just sick."

Even as she spoke, Zoey knew that this was a fallacious train of thought. Nobody went crazy and banged their head against a door when they were sick! Zoey heard a crack in the distance and a shiver of fear raced down her spine. It sounded like the door was breaking down.

Zoey stepped back into the hall and glanced towards the door. There was a hideous slash down the center of the door, and the banging was as loud as ever. "Jeez," she whimpered, scrambling back towards the living room of her parents' posh townhouse.

She was halfway through the open living area near the fireplace when she heard the crash. The squeal and moan froze Zoey's blood in her vains. She turned in time to see what had once been her mother staggering into the living room, clutching a severed arm in one hand.

The bloody arm dropped as the creature saw Zoey. It began to amble towards her. Zoey's eyes moved from the bloody arm on the berber carpet, to the blood dripping from the creature's jaw, and to the grasping hands reaching towards Zoey herself.

"Sorry, mother," she whispered as her eyes cut to the fireplace. She snatched the poker tool from the stand, raised it over her head…


	2. Chapter One

**One**

TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FIRST INFECTION

"Never again," Zoey Harris whispered to herself as she climbed out of the sewage and onto the slick, discolored concrete canal. For an hour she had been trudging through the sewers under Fairfield, Pennsylvania, following the sound of voices and the echo of what she could swear was a radio in the tunnels.

Her iPod had long since run out of charge, and so she had been guided by the shafts of dull light that trickled down from the grates and manholes above. Every so often, the young woman heard a shuffle, a moan, or a growl that warned her that she was getting close to one or more of the infected. Since she had been forced to bludgeon her mother—no, she insisted to herself, she had bludgeoned the zombie that had once been her mother—Zoey had wandered the streets looking for evacuations.

But then the CEDA trucks stopped coming, and the ubiquitous relief workers were gone. The shelters fell one by one, at least one a day. Zoey had read the writing on the wall and followed a group of survivors underground—in this case, into the sewers. But they had disappeared into the darkness, leaving Zoey trying to feel after them with nothing but her blood-covered poker and an iPod for light. And then the iPod had died, and Zoey was left alone in the dark.

"I don't care _what_'s going on in the streets, I'm never going into the sewers again. I'd rather be pulled to bits by the zombies." Zoey continued grumbling to herself as she walked along the canal. She fell silent as she caught another voice up ahead; it sounded like at least two men. "Hello?" she called.

Only the echo of her voice off concrete and the grumbling of a few zombies behind her. They must've been alerted to her presence, because she heard the shuffle of movement in the sewer. Zoey's grip on her fireplace poker tightened and she crept along further. Her hand groped along the rough concrete wall until--

Smooth metal replaced the concrete. Was it a door? She slid the her hand across the smoothness until her hands came to a knob. She twisted it; it was locked. Cursing, Zoey raised her poker and bashed at the door several times until a satisfying 'clunk!' announced the separation of the knob from the door. She pulled the door open; weak red lights from emergency bulbs bathed the store-room.

Blinking, Zoey stepped into the storage room and pushed the door closed behind her. It was bizarre to see anything more than shadows after countless hours of uninterrupted blackness. She took a breath and looked around to see if there was something she could use to block the door. It would be nice to have a rest.

Several metal shelves lined the walls. Zoey examined them briefly, finding a red first aid kid on one shelf and a maglite flashlight on another. There was nothing else of value, only a few five-gallon buckets of paint. Zoey gripped one of the shelves and pulled it towards the door; the horrible shrieking sounded exceptionally loud after so long in near-silence.

From a stack of spools in the corner, Zoey heard a voice murmuring. It sounded like, "What was that?"

Zoey grabbed her poker in one hand and snatched the flashlight off the shelf. She clicked it on and was pleasantly surprised when the beam shone across the room. "Hello?" she called softly. Her voice was muffled by the concrete. "Who's there?"

There was a scrape. Zoey stepped back as the spool slid back on the floor. Zoey shined her light at what she now recognized as a hole in the wall behind the crates. "Get that damn light outta my eye," barked a scraggly old man as he scrambled out of the hole. "Let's see ya, kid, been bit?"

"What?" Zoey demanded, her eyes following the older man as he began to walk around her. He was wearing a green jacket and a beret; even in the sewer he was chewing on a smoking cigarette. "Uh, no, I'm not bit."

"C'mon, Bill, leave her alone." Zoey spun to see a well-dressed (or...would be well-dressed before the apocalypse, she imagined) black man climbing out of the hole. "I'm Louis. Y'all right, Miss?"

"Zoey," she said, turning back to face Bill. "I'm fine. Are you... I mean, from the army?" she asked Bill, then turned to Louis to see his shirt and tie. "And CEDA?"

There was a bark of laughter, and Zoey turned again to see a third man straightening from the hole in the wall. His black jeans, studded belt, wifebeater shirt and black leather vest were spattered with blood and what Zoey certainly hoped was mud. "We're not that lucky, girlie. Bill here hasn't worn a uniform since 'Nam and Louie worked at the Grab'n'Go."

"I was the _manager_," Louis said importantly.

"Cut the crap, Francis, we've got to get moving." Bill glanced towards the door. "You came that way? What's the situation?"

"Uh," said Zoey. "Zombies."

"No kidding," said Louis as he hooked his thumb towards the hole they had emerged from. "That way, too. Thank God for this." He held up his sub-machine gun.

"Where are you headed?" Zoey asked, tearing her eyes from the gun. She rested her poker over her left shoulder and glanced to Bill, who seemed to be in charge.

"We heard some kind of announcement. They said there was still an evac out of Mercy Hospital," said Bill. "We were trying to find our way through the sewers to the hospital, but I think we're lost."

"You can't get there from here," said Zoey. Bill raised an eyebrow at her, and she explained, "I heard my dad talking about it a few years back. There are two sewer systems in the city. The old city and the new city. We're in the old city; Mercy is in the new city."

"Ahh, horseshit," Bill snarled. "We'll have to head up."

"Up? But...there's vampires up there!" exclaimed Francis.

Louis and Bill snapped, "They're _zombies_, Francis."

"Whatever the hell they are!" shouted Francis.

"Shh," said Louis. The four fell silent. Zoey cocked her head to the side and held her breath.

A skittering, scraping sound erupted from the hole where Bill, Francis, and Louis had emerged from. "What's that?" she moaned, though she already knew the answer.

"Horde," snapped Bill. She shoved her out of the way and pulled his assault rifle from his back. The three men shoved the spool back in place just as the skittering became a dull roar. Louis pulled the shelf down against the spools as Bill turned to the door. "Go to the nearest ladder. This is going to get ugly."

The men pulled the shelf down and stacked it against the spools. "I hope that holds," said Louis nervously while Francis pushed the door open and stepped back onto the sewer canal outside the door.

"Hey, girlie, you armed aside from that stick?" Francis asked.

"No," she said, slinging the first aid kit over her shoulder as she followed Francis onto the canal. She shined her light to the left; a blood-covered zombie snarled in the beam. Francis pulled her back by the sleeve, whipped a pistol from the front of his jeans, and put a bullet between the undead's eyes.

"Careful," he said quietly. "Here." He flipped the gun so that he held the barrel and extended the butt to her. "Know how to use it?"

"Uh, not really," said Zoey.

"It's easy. The safety is off. Point and shoot. Just like a video game. And I've got plenty of mags for it." He held out a pair of magazines. Zoey took them and slid them into her jacket pockets. She hefted the pistol, tested the aim, and flicked the LED light source that was attached to it on.

"Over here," Bill shouted. "Hey Francis, lookie here."

They turned to see Bill and Louis' beams of lights shining onto the canal several meters up. They hurried towards the other two to find Bill hoisting a shotgun. "Miss—you said your name was what again?" asked Bill.

"Zoey," she said. "Zoey Harris."

"Do you know how to use on of these?" Zoey shook her head, and Bill thrust the weapon towards Francis instead. "I know you do. Here." Even in the dull light, Zoey could see Francis' eyes light up. He took the weapon and a bag of shells, then pulled his other pistol from his waistband and handed it to Zoey.

"There ya go, girlie," said Francis, stroking his shotgun happily. "I won't be needing that anymore."

"Up we go," said Bill. Zoey glanced over to where he suddenly shone his light; she hadn't seen the ladder there before. Bill began to climb up and stopped for a moment to push the manhole cover away. A moment later, he said: "We're clear. Zoey, you're next."

Zoey flicked the safety on Francis' pistols on and tucked them into her waistband before beginning to climb up the ladder. She pulled herself up and shined her light around covertly; they were in an alley between apartment buildings. They were in the old city residential area. A fire burned in the building to Zoey's left; Zoey thought she saw a pair of legs jutting from behind a dumpster. She shuddered and turned back to the manhole.

Louis and Francis emerged and Bill cocked his head towards the left. They began to walk, the only sound their footsteps.

They walked for several minutes, occasionally crossing another alley. Zoey didn't even think to ask if they were going the right way. She was so grateful to be in the presence of others that she was happy to follow wherever they were to go.

"Hold up." Zoey nearly ran into Louis as they came up short. She moved left to see what Bill was looking at, and immediately regretted it. She stifled a moan as she felt bile rise in her stomach; a green, diseased hand shot up from a pile of corpses; a ragged wound that looked like teeth-marks showed where the severed thumb had been. Around the pile, a green slime had pooled. Bill knelt down and touched it, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. "Ain't seen anything like this before."

Francis made a disgusted noise. "Jesus. Don't let that stop you from smearing it all over you."

Bill stood and absently wiped his hand on Francis' vest. His voice was impatient: "They're _changing_."

"Goddammit," Francis groaned, waving the air in front of his nose. "It stinks!"

Louis' indulgent chuckle was cut off by the sudden sound of crying. Zoey's head whipped to the side; a metal door stood ajar. "Someone's still alive," she murmured to herself. It sounded like a woman or child.

Bill turned to the door and opened it. Zoey followed closely after him, crouching down as he said, "Over there?"

"Hello?" Zoey flipped her flashlight on, shining the beam across the floor. "Hello? Hey, it's okay. We're gonna--"

A flash of lightning illuminated the room; Zoey recoiled at the sight of the witch. Bill put a hand on her wrist and pulled her arm down. "Lights _off_."

A growling groan erupted from the crouched creature. Zoey had an uneasy feeling about this. Outside, Louis turned, a curious look on his face as he heard sounds coming from up the alleyway. "Oh shit," he said. Francis turned and raised his rifle. Several zombies were running wildly towards them. They both opened fire. "Shit, shit, shit! They're comin'!" He turned to the room and shined his light through the doorway. "What the?"

The witch screamed. Zoey turned and shouted, "Run like hell!" Bill gripped Zoey's upper arm and hustled her out the door, slamming it as the witch charged towards them. There was a resounding _thud_ and the door dented. Another _thud_ created a larger dent, and a third broke the dent into a hole. Louis immediately began to shoot the witch. Zoey turned and aimed her pistols at the oncoming zombies. Behind her, she heard Louis shouting, "Do you like that?"

A scream and a gurgling moan announced the witch's death. Zoey saw a small device sitting discarded under a nearby dumpster. She knelt, picked it up and looked at it briefly. It looked to be some kind of explosive; she tucked it in her jacket pocket. Bill called over his shoulder, "Stick together!"

A gasping, rasping scream erupted from behind them. Zoey turned in time to see something wrap around Bill's shoulder, but the zombies rushing towards them took her attention. Bill shouted, and Francis turned to fire his gun up at the thing that had dragged Bill.

"Guys?" Zoey called over her shoulder; the zombies were getting thicker...and closer. Zoey holstered her guns and pulled the explosive from her pocket. A switch was located on a battery. She touched it and it began to beep. The zombies rushed at her.

It erupted into Smoke as Bill collapsed to the ground. Francis fired his shotgun into an attacking zombie, then turned and fired at another as it rushed towards Bill. "Merry Christmas."

Meanwhile Zoey had decided that she didn't want to be in possession of the bomb when it went off. She hurled it as far as she could. "Fire in the hole!"

The undead swarmed around it as the survivors ducked behind whatever they could. Louis was sent stumbling when the bomb exploded; he grunted at the heat, but was distracted when the chop-chop-chop of helicopter blades cut through the air. Waving his arms, he ran after it. "Hey! Hey, we're over here!" He ran into the street; Zoey was on his heels; Bill and Francis hurried after. Louis called: "We're not infected!" The helicopter disappeared into the distance. "Damn it!"

Zoey emerged from the alley just as a shadow pounced on Louis. Louis shouted as it began to claw at him. Adrenaline took over; Zoey ran at the creature and heaved her shoulder into it. It went sprawling and she pulled her pistols and began to shoot it. It stumbled, shuffled, and--

Louis fired at the hunter's head, sending its body crashing against the nearby abandoned car. There was a moment of silence, eerie and unsettling, and then the lights began to flash as the car alarm went off.

"This is gonna get bad," Bill moaned as he and Francis emerged from the alley.

Zoey's blood ran cold as a terrifying scream erupted from all directions. Zoey turned, stalking into the street. Shadows on the far buildings, and beyond the barrier behind them, were moving rapidly. The survivors turned around; Zoey had the distinct impression that they all knew that this would probably be the end. And then... a roar like an explosion sounded, and a hulking shadow appeared on the apartment building two blocks away.

The massive creature was faster, taller, wider than the other undead. Zoey watched as the sweep of its arm threw a handful of infected out of his path. She backed up instinctively, her hands going to her pistols. Moments later a car came rolling and crunching up the avenue towards them. "Run or shoot?" Louis demanded. Zoey shook her head. "Run or shoot?!"

"Both!" Bill barked, and pointed to an alleyway. Zoey looked over her shoulder as she ran between another pair of apartment buildings, followed by the three men.

Louis pointed at a fire-escape that was lowered to the ground. "Get to the roof!" he called. Zoey ran along a nearby pile of rubble and grabbed the ladder. She scrambled up and watched as the tank came barreling around the corner.

"Go, go, go!" shouted Francis and Louis began to climb up. Zoey moved to the third landing and began firing wildly at the zombies below them. Francis stopped, turned to shout at Bill, "Come on! Come on!" He was silenced when the tank threw an infected corpse at Francis. He sprawled and the tank ran at him. Bill aimed his rifle at the tank's face and opened fire. The tank growled and swung at Bill. He dodged out of the way, and the tank punched through a brick wall.

The distraction was enough. Francis climbed up as the tank recovered. It picked up a piece of rubble and hurled it at the fire escape. "Heads up," shouted Louis, and Francis jerked back in time to avoid being smashed by the rock. Zoey began to pick off the zombies as they rushed at Bill, who was reaching for the ladder.

"Go on!" she called at Bill. "I'll hold them off!"

She leaned over the railing as Bill scrambled up the ladder. The tank launched itself after him, but the old, rusted bolts that held the fire escape to the wall wouldn't support his weight. Zoey felt it shift under her; she gasped and steadied herself, shooting at the tank. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Louis help Bill over the wall and onto the roof.

The tank's hand reached up, towards Zoey; she cried out and turned, reaching for the wall, but the tank grabbed the fire escape. Zoey tumbled back, one of her pistols flying wild behind her. The fire escape screeched as it separated from the wall, and Zoey leaped from the fire escape.

_I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it!_

"Francis!" she half-shouted, half-whimpered as she leaped into the air. She reached for him, her fingers grasping--

He caught her with an easy confidence and pulled her up onto the roof. Zoey clutched her chest, panting heavily in the chilly November drizzle. She was covered in blood, she was cold and frightened and orphaned but, she considered as Francis helped her to her feet, at least she was alive.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Walking across the roof of the apartment, I finally caught my breath. Granted, we still had a ways to go, but at least I hadn't been smashed. TI walked under a tarp that was blowing in the wind, and was momentarily sheltered from the drizzle. A moment later, the tarp tore free of its restraints and blew away, dousing me in an icy splash.

A spotlight played over the roof from a helicopter flying over the area. A voice called, "To anyone who can hear this: proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation!" I craned my neck to see the helicopter fly into the distance towards the massive hospital in the distance. Spotlights shined from the roof.

"It looks like the hospital still has power," I said, pointing.

"A generator at least," agreed Bill as he wandered over to the table under where the tarp had been. Obviously the roof had been the point of a last stand for some survivors; a corpse splayed against the wall next to the table, pistol in hand. A set of weapons sat on the table. Bill helped himself to the submachine gun. "Might as well. Poor Betsy didn't make it."

"Betsy?" I echoed.

Louis rolled his eyes. "His M16," he murmured theatrically. "Bill named it."

Francis leaned over the side of the roof, shouldering his shotgun. "Yep. I can see it, under a couple hundred pounds of metal, and about a ton of tank." Francis glanced over at the other three. "Tank's dead, thank God."

"Well we'd better get this show on the road," said Bill. He picked up a bandolier and threw it to Francis. "Load that up with shells. There's a coffee-can with a bunch of ammo here. I, grab some clips. They look to be standard nine millimeter."

I picked up several clips and stuffed them into my pockets. I went to the corpse and carefully unbuckled his holster. After cinching it around my waist and holstering my pistol, I scooped up the pistol that the corpse had in its hand. "We definitely picked the wrong roof," I murmured.

"What do you mean?" asked Louis as he picked up a couple SMG clips from the table.

"We can't get onto the next roof from here. It's too tall," I said, pointing. "In order to get across to the hospital we'll have to walk on the streets and...well," I said with a shaky smirk. "You know what that means."

"Zombies," Bill spat.

"Well, it could be worse. The building could be on fire," said Francis as he went over to a skylight and shined his flashlight through it. "As it is we're just facing some dirty laundry."

"Come on," said Louis. "Let's get moving."

I followed Bill and Louis to the door. They had to force the door; apparently it had been blockaded during the initial outbreak. The stairwell was littered with corpses; some were relatively fresh; others were heavily decomposed. I held my breath as they moved into an apartment kitchen.

"Don't touch anything," Bill murmured. I turned to see Francis staring at a package of toaster pastries in a small pantry. "Might be infected unless it's hermetically sealed."

"But--"

"Relax, wouldja? I'm joking. If it's sealed it should be fine." Bill reached into the closet and snatched a packet of peanuts. "Get something high in protein if you can."

I grabbed a granola bar and tucked it into my back pocket, then wandered towards the living room of the apartment. "What a mess," I said, crouching down near the upturned sofa to examine a wrinkled hand emerging from underneath.

"They don't call it an apocalypse for nothing," said Bill and, though I could hear the disinterest in his voice, something in his eyes and the tightness of his voice told me that he was as disturbed as I was. "C'mon, kid. Let's keep moving."

They made their way down another flight of stairs and into a hallway, occasionally dispatching some undead. The survivors picked their way through the demolished apartment, scrambling over debris. I heard Bill curse and glanced over to where he was standing, hands on hips, at a hole in the floor.

"I'm not a fan of stairs, but ten steps is certainly preferable to one gigantic leap," said Bill. He dropped to sit on the edge of the hole, his legs dangling, then jumped down, landing with a grunt and a roll. "Francis, you next so you can help the kid down."

"I'm fine," I protested, crouching down at the side of the hole.

"No doubt, but if you break your ankle on the way down we'll have to shoot you," said Francis. He slung his shotgun over his shoulder, knelt at the side of the hole, turned around and slowly lowered himself down. The drop was just a few feet. "Unless you can do that, then let me help you."

I sighed and holstered her pistols huffily. "Did you learn pull-ups in the army, or in prison?" I asked as I sat down on the side, my legs swinging in the hole.

"Whichever it was, they didn't teach me how to carry a sassy college girl, so watch your mouth," said Francis with a sly smirk. He reached up; his hands barely brushed my calves. "Ease yourself down. I'll catch you."

I pushed off, releasing my grip. Francis lost his balance as his hands found purchase on her waist; he fell back onto a pile of wet cardboard boxes with a groan. "Thank you, Francis," said I cheerily, apparently oblivious to my position straddling his abdomen. I slowly swung her leg over so that both were on one side and stood up, brushing my knees off. "Are you going to lay around all day?" I asked, offering him a hand up.

"I _so _missed having a woman around," Francis mumbled to Louis, who had landed effortlessly with all the athletic grace of a jaguar, as the biker stood up.

"This way," called Bill, leading the way through a demolished wall and out the apartment building. We found ourselves in the same alley we had just escaped from, though now with a barrier to keep out tanks and other infected.

"You okay, Bill?" asked Louis. "That was a bit of a drop."

"I'm fine," said Bill impatiently. "Looks like we can head that way."

The trip up the alley was quiet, save for the shuffling of our feet. Occasionally, a whisper of movement was heard behind us, but every time I turned around the alley was empty. "I have a bad feeling about this," I muttered, edging closer to the three men.

"Relax," said Francis firmly. "Don't sweat."

"This is a zombie outbreak, Francis, do you expect--" I began hotly, but Louis cut me off.

"He means it. Don't sweat. Near as we can tell, the infected can smell us. Perfume, soap, shampoo, bodily fluids..." Louis shuddered and shook his head. "They swarm when they smell something different."

We rounded a corner. The alley was jammed with cars and other debris. A few undead caught sight of the movement and began to clamber over the sedan. "Get back," said Bill, raising his weapon. He opened fire, and a roar resounded from beyond the blocked alley. "Shit," he spat. "Sometimes loud noises do it too."

The horde poured over the car, and a scraping sound made me turn to see them piling over a delivery truck to her right. I unsnapped my holster and drew my pistols, beginning to open fire. I tried to be as careful with her shots as possible, but as the zombies dropped to the ground only feet from her, her fingers went on autopilot.

BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM! My pistols spat hot lead at the infected. Blood sprayed, corpses fell, casings dropped like so much metallic rain until-- _click click click click._ I looked down; out of ammo! My fingers trembled as I tossed one pistol into my other hand, holding them both together as I dug in my pockets for magazines.

The zombies advanced. I stepped back gingerly, dropping the two spent magazines quickly. A moment later I jammed the fresh magazines home and raised her pistols--

It happened in an instant. Something grabbed me from behind and pulled powerfully. I stumbled back, then fell, my pistols discarded as my hands wrapped around the thing on her body. It was wet, muscled, and as she struggled with it, it constricted around her, squeezing painfully.

"Help me!" I shouted, coughing. "Please, help!"

It was Louis who turned first, but Francis who came running. I let out a shriek of pain as the tongue constricted around me again; I could feel my spine tingle in pain. Francis, his face a furious mask, launched himself over me and tackled the smoker. Released, I collapsed to the ground, panting. I turned in time to see Francis aim a point-blank blast into the smoker's face with his shotgun.

"She okay?" demanded Louis from his position fighting the horde.

Francis didn't answer. He crouched next to me and helped me up by my hand and elbow. "You okay?" he asked quietly. I didn't trust myself to speak, so I simply nodded, gulping. "Smoker," he explained. "Where are your guns?"

I looked around; I had dropped them while being dragged across the alley. I allowed Francis to help me to my feet, mumbling, "Thanks, Francis," as I walked over to pick up the pistols.

"No problem. Just do the same for me." He patted my shoulder and we rejoined Bill and Louis, who were finishing up the last of the stampeding horde. "She's okay," he reported to the others.

Bill nodded and scrambled over the car. I followed, putting a foot on the bumper and pulling myself up onto the hood. I stepped over the shattered windshield, trying to ignore the scent of decomposition from within, and then bounced from the trunk to the asphalt on the other side.

Louis and Francis carried up the rear. "What street is this?" asked Louis, glancing to the right. A tall barrier was erected across the road and sidewalk; I could see several zombies shuffling around on the other side among overturned cars. I looked to the otherside to see a flaming tanker truck at an intersection. Louis read the sign, "Holly Street."

"There's a subway station on Holly, isn't there?" I asked. True, I didn't often take public transportation when living with my parents, but I seemed to recall hearing about it.

"Sure thing," Bill said. "Should be just around the corner."

"Do you want to walk out in the open, or come on through here?" Francis asked, hooking his thumb towards a door in the building. "Might be some supplies through here."

"Or zombies," Louis replied.

"I'm going through," said Francis, opening the door. He stepped into the darkness.

I bit my bottom lip and glanced at the other two men. "I'll go with him...just in case," I said and darted in after him. I flipped on my flashlight to see Francis looking through a doorway. "Anything?" I asked.

"Pills," said Francis. He showed me a white bottle before tucking it into his back pocket.

"Can we, like, hurry? It's creepy in here."

"Relax, darlin'. I'm lookin' after you." Francis flashed a smile and came back into the hallway. He studied the vending machine across the hall and said, "Want a soda?"

"I'm good. Let's go," I snapped.

We walked into a receptionist area and I saw Louis and Bill moving through the window. A dull light flashed beyond them, but I couldn't see what it was through the grimy window. Francis looked around the room, his light shining over some shelves. He crossed the room and then tossed me a bottle of pills. "Just in case," he said.

"Uh," I said, studying the bottle by flashlight for a moment. "Ibuprofen, a nice vintage."

"Such fancy words," said Francis. He opened the door and we went back to the sidewalk.

"Anything useful in there?" demanded Bill.

"Not really. Just a couple pills," said Francis. "No clips, no nothin'."

I walked over towards the subway station. "Look, we're almost to the station."

"We need the red line--" started Bill, but he stopped and called, "I, watch out!"

I turned in time to see a shadow land in front of me. I stumbled back, bumping the car that was next to the entrance to the subway. Immediately, the alarm began to shriek. "Oh shit," I gasped, drawing my pistols. The shadow, a hunter I guessed, drew back as if to pounce, but Bill's careful shot killed it handily.

"Here they come," shouted Louis over the growing roar of zombies.

"Get underground," Bill ordered, pointing to the stairwell. Francis grabbed me by the elbow and jerked me away from the car. We were halfway down the stairs when the horde flooded in from the station below us.

We opened fire on the crowd, retreating back up the stairs as necessary until Louis was back-to-back with Bill as the old man battled the horde from the street level. "Let's go, let's go," shouted Louis as his bullets cut through the crowd of zombies. "Come on."

Bill, Francis, and I hurried into the underground. The stairs had been blocked, but a gaping hole in the wall opened into a storage room. A peculiar red steel door stood on the other side. "Saferoom," Francis shouted, and Bill laughed.

"What's a saferoom?" I asked as we dispatched the last remaining undead and crossed the storage room.

"These doors are reinforced to withstand any zombie attack," said Bill, banging the butt of his rifle against the door. It gave a resounding thud. "Before CEDA skipped down, they installed these safe-rooms in places where it would be easy for people like us to hole up and defend ourselves. Usually there's supplies and things in there."

He pulled the door open and gestured for me to enter. I walked in and almost screamed with joy; there was a bathroom on the right. "Oh God," I moaned. "Do you think there's running water?" I asked as Bill shut the door behind us.

"Doubt it but it wouldn't hurt to try," said Francis.

I stepped into the bathroom and turned the handles on the sink. A rusty discharge spluttered from the pipes and I groaned. I knelt down and opened the door under the sink. "Hey guys," I called, reaching in to withdraw a few bottles with rags stuffed in the top. Louis appeared in the doorway. I thrust one of the bottles at him. "Useful?"

"Molotov cocktails," he said with a laugh. He tucked one into his back pocket and offered the other one to Bill.

"No black-powder grenades? Well, this'll do." Bill tucked his molotov away and then went to the desk in the main area of the saferoom. He sat on the corner and said, "Listen up, people. Out that door we'll be, generally speaking, in the Holly Street subway station. We need to take the red line north; the power is off, so we can probably walk on the tracks."

He paused and then looked down. "We've been moving for a few days now, don't know about you, Zoey, but we could use a break. Let's just relax for a few minutes; nothing's going to get in, and we'll go out when we're all ready. Agreed?"

The four survivors agreed and took a seat on whatever they could find. I sat in the corner and hugged my knees to my chest. Even though I was covered in grime, it still felt nice to be close to something warm. I rested my head against my knee and closed my eyes.


	4. Chapter Three

**A/N: **Some reviewers expressed confusion about whose point of view this was now from. I had originally written two drafts of this story: one from Zoey's POV, and one from a third person POV. I decided that I liked the first person better, so the "I" in the story refers to Zoey. Sorry for the confusion. Enjoy!

**Chapter Three**

I didn't know how much time had passed when I was roused by the sound of a muffled clang. I opened my eyes, looking around in bewilderment. It was a moment before I remembered where I was, and another to remember why I was here.

Another muffled clang. I stood up and looked to the red door leading into the subway station. A zombie was banging against the door. The boys were still asleep. I calmly rolled my neck, trying to relieve the crick I had there from resting at an awkward angle, and then pulled a pistol from my holster and put a round in the zombie's head.

Bill rocketed awake from his perch on the desk, calling out "Charlie, you son of a bitch!" Louis rolled over on the floor, waving a hand as if dismissing a parent trying to wake him up for school. Meanwhile, Francis had been sitting on a stack of boxes in the corner. "Nice shot," he said.

"Thanks," I said, tucking the pistol back into the holster. "You didn't rest?"

"Nah," he said. "Somebody had to make sure the zombies didn't get in." He glanced to Bill, who was smoothing his rumpled jacket. "Morning, sunshine."

"Cram it, Francis," Bill said and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his breast pocket. He lit one and took a drag. "Louis, get your ass up, it's time to move!"

"Mmmph," said Louis. Bill reached down, seized Louis by the tie, and yanked upward. "All right, all right!" Louis shouted, scrambling to his feet.

"Glad you see it my way. Everybody got ammo?" Bill passed around a coffee can full of ammunition. Louis snagged a few clips for his Uzi, I stuffed my pockets with as many 9 millimeter magazines I could find, and Francis loaded his bandolier with shotgun shells.

"Lock and load," said Louis as we turned to the door.

We stepped out of the safe room into a destroyed storage room—maybe. It might've been an office; I didn't know because most of the room had been ravaged. A few shelves stood off to my left with some quickly-dispatched zombies milling about between them. "Another hole," Bill said. "And stairs. My favorite."

"Look," said Louis, pointing. "We can climb down the rebar."

"There's an upside to the building being ready to collapse," I said with cheerfulness I didn't really feel. Louis proceeded down the side, the rebar bending slightly under his weight.

"You're next," said Francis. "You probably way little enough that you won't bend the bars." I glanced over to see him giving me a once-over. His eyes flicked to mine and he smiled slowly. "Probably."

I chose to ignore this, instead turning and climbing down the rebar. It was almost pure darkness, the only source of light being the burning wreckage of cars that clogged the stairway down from the street. Behind me was a sea of darkness extending back under the safe room. In front of me was a semi-destroyed hallway. There were two ways to go: left, down the stairs, presumably towards the platform; and right, into a maintenance hallway laid bare thanks to the destruction of the surroundings.

Bill came next, and Francis dropped down like a cocky teenager. "Let's go," he said, flipping on his flashlight. I followed him down the maintenance hallway. "Hey," he said, pausing to bend down. He picked up a pipe bomb and handed it to me. "Just in case."

I thanked him with a smile, then pointed forward. "Dead end," I said. The maintenance tunnel had collapsed. I played my flashlight beam across the tunnel floor, throwing light into a vent. I could see slats of light beyond; it looked like a vent exit.

"I'll go first," he said, even as I started for the hole in the floor.

"No, I will."

"There could be zombies down there," Francis said.

I put my hand on my hip. "What do you think this is for?" I asked, gesturing to the pistol strapped to my hip. I dropped into the hole and kicked the vent. I could see Bill and Louis on the landing of the stairs below.

"Any supplies?" Bill called up at me, his voice echoing strangely off the tile walls.

"A grenade," I said, waving it at him.

"Put that thing away or you're going to get us all killed," Bill growled. "Where's Francis?"

"Right behind me," I said, turning as I tucked the pipe bomb into my belt. I flashed my light back up the vent; Francis wasn't there. "Francis? Francis?"

I heard him grunt, but his voice was far away. "Francis!" I yelled, throwing myself back into the vent. Bill was right behind me as I climbed back into the maintenance hallway. I could see Francis, illuminated in the light of the burning cars, suspended from a smoker's tongue by the safe room

Running for him, I barely heard Bill drop to a knee and fire his weapon in short bursts. The monster burst into a cloud of blood and smoke. Francis landed with a heavy thud just as I reached him. "Are you all right?" I demanded, pulling the tongue off his chest and tossing it aside.

"Fine," he said, massaging his ribcage. "Holy crap, that wasn't fun."

"Wipe yourself off, kid, the subway's almost here," Bill called.

"The subway's still running?" Louis asked from behind him.

"Look, kid," said Bill, pointing up with a chuckle. "Somebody wrote gullible on the ceiling."

I helped Francis up and all four of us walked down the stairway together. I followed Bill, jumping the turnstile and we mounted the stairs towards the platform. I wasn't prepared for the scene that awaited me.

I couldn't imagine what had happened first, the subway crash or the infection. Subway cars were strewn across the tracks and platform, smashed like soda cans in some places, at other places apparently strong enough to destroy concrete walls.

"Holy mother," I whispered. The only thing more unnerving than the crash was the several dozen zombies milling around in and around the destruction. My voice carried, and a few turned and sniffed hungrily. I raised my pistol and fired a round, then a second, and a third. Despite my trembling hand, I was able to execute two headshots and a shot in the neck.

"Look out!" Bill shouted, raising his submachine gun as the other zombies, roused by the sound of my shots, wheeled around and stared at us. They began to rush. "Let's get moving. Run and gun, kid."

I followed Bill up the rest of the stairs and we dropped onto the tracks, firing at the infected as we picked our way across the wreckage of the subway. "This tunnel's clear," Louis said, pointing north. "You said the hospital was north of here, right?"

"Yep, this is the red line. Hustle," said Bill. "I'll hold up the rear. Get going."

We climbed over a pile of rubble, dropped back to the line, and fought our way through a couple dozen more zombies. "What do you think," I gasped, pausing to squeeze off a round as a zombie came rushing at me. "...happened down here?"

Louis fired a short burst of his Uzi as we passed through the tunnel. "Most likely, an infected attacked the driver."

Francis shook his head. "Nah, man. Did you see what happened in New York, on the news?"

I shook my head. "I didn't hear anything about the infection until a few days ago," I confessed, following Francis as we emerged from the tunnel into a devastated platform.

"People didn't want the conductors to stop the train to let more people on. They were afraid of the infection," Francis said. "Some of them rushed the driver's cabin and there was a struggle for control. A news crew on the last subway to JFK saw the whole thing."

"Train derailed and lots of people were hurt. Injuries allowed infected blood to infect more people, and in twelve hours the subway system was full of zombies," said Bill grimly. We walked past a pile of flaming wreckage.

"Look up there," Louis called, pointing into the dimly lit tunnel. We could see a car, still on the tracks, with the door busted open. As we got closer, I recognized the forms the corpses strewn in the seats and on the floor of the car.

"God," I muttered. "That smell."

"You get used to it after awhile," Francis said quietly. "Just try to ignore it."

"Easier said than done."

Francis climbed the four feet into the car, then turned to help Louis up. Louis and Francis each took a hand and hauled me into the car, and then helped Bill up. "Thanks," he said, grunting lightly as he rubbed his shoulder. "The ol' body isn't what it used to be."

"I know the feeling," Louis said.

"This sardine can of corpses is giving me the creeps," I said on a shudder. "Can we, you know, go?"

"I'm with her," said Louis. "Let's move."

"Stick together," said Bill as we began moving down the car. I tried to step over the bodies, which was difficult because that required looking down at them. More than once I felt a rib snap under someone's foot.

I was the first to reach the other side, and I dropped onto the tracks, swinging my light around. It was eerily quiet, and more than a little dark. The only sound was something dripping off to right. Heavy pipes ran along the wall.

Francis dropped next as I shined my light over the left wall, exposing a door. I climbed onto the platform and tried the door handle. It opened, letting me pull it back. I heard a weird gurgling noise and brought my flashlight up, but before I could see what it was, a set of hands dragged me back.

I fell, my rear end hitting the cold pavement, my back against something soft and warm. "Boomer!" Francis whispered as a stream of foul-smelling, green goo erupted from the door.

"Look out, kid!" Bill yelled, leaping up from behind as the monstrous, bloated zombie pushed through the door. Louis raised his weapon but Bill shouted, "No!" and gave the boomer a vicious kick to the backside. It stumbled away, dropping off the edge of the platform and rolling down the tracks a way. Bill raised his gun and shot it, sending a shower of blood and slime into the air, just missing the four of us.

"What the hell was that?" I demanded, shivering in disgust.

Francis gave me a little push, and I murmured an apology as I stood up. "I forgot, you're new at this. That, girlie, was a boomer. Easily killed, but deadly. You see that green slime?" He pointed at the trail leading from the door. "When it comes into contact with human skin, it releases a scent that drives the zombies wild. They come from all over."

"And they call it a boomer because it blows up, obviously."

"Boom," said Louis as he helped Francis up. "You don't want to be covered in that stuff. I saw it happen to somebody before, and there was nothing left of him when it was all over."

Bill led the way into the hallway the boomer had attacked from. I could hear the blast of his weapon as he dispatched zombies in the hallway. I cast my flashlight over the platform one last time before I turned. Francis was waiting right outside the door. "You coming?"

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry."

Up a short flight of stairs, we emerged into a strange, columned subterranean chamber. "Where are we?" Louis demanded.

"No idea. Keep moving," said Bill.

"Look," I said, pointing over at a dim orange light opposite the large room. "A light. Do you think this place has a generator?"

"It's possible," said Francis. "But let's not draw any attention to ourselves, huh?"

We crossed the room as silently as possible, hearing the occasional groan and grunt of the undead around us. Bill stopped dead in his tracks; Louis bumped into him, but Bill didn't seem to mind. He breathed, "Sweet mama."

"You okay, Bill?" asked Louis.

Then I noticed the table off to the side piled high with guns and ammo. "Here," Bill said, thrusting the submachine gun into Louis' arms. He scooped up the assault rifle from the table. "Oh yes. Betsy's back."

"Is he going to be okay?" I muttered to Francis.

He didn't answer right away. "Here," he said finally, shoving his shotgun into my free hand. He helped himself to the auto-shotgun on the table. "Oh, this is so beautiful."

"I think they need a minute," said Louis, rolling his eyes.

"We don't have a minute," I hissed. "Come on, guys, grab some ammo and let's get moving."

"You know how to use that thing?" asked Louis, nodding at the shotgun. In response, I pumped the barrel and cradled it in my grasp. "You've fired one before?"

"Yes," I said. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Well, okay, not so much fired one as seen it done on television."

Fully stocked, we finally entered the lit hallway and climbed up a stairway. I thought we were above ground because there was a window, but we entered a concrete room dominated by two huge electrical generators.

"Split up," said Bill. "Stick with your partner. I don't see where we go from here."

Francis and I walked right, scrambling over a hastily-built barricade, while Bill and Louis went left. Francis and I stepped into a destroyed locker room with a gaping maw in the ground, half of the floor giving way to the room we had just left below.

"What is this place?" I asked Francis. He was examining a first aid station.

"Pills here," he said, tossing me a bottle. He tucked the other two in his pockets. "Save 'em for later if you don't need 'em now."

"Thanks."

I heard a murmur of curiosity from Louis, followed by a screeching sound.

"God damn it!" shouted Bill from across the room. "What the hell are you doing?"

I moved to the doorway of the locker room as a horrifying, moaning scream pierced the air. "Oh my God," I breathed. "They're coming!"

My screamed warning was still echoing off the concrete walls as the undead horde burst through the six windows above the room, and from the stairwell we had just left. I could hear them rushing below us.

"Zoey," said Francis. "Get back."

I turned too slow; suddenly a smoker's tongue was around me and I was dragged off my feet. I fell on my rear end, and my jeans scraped along the concrete floor. My shoulder banged against rubble as I was dragged towards the hole in the floor.

"Help me!" I screamed, my voice shrill and horrified. The first blow of the zombie's fist against my cheek sent me reeling, and I soon I couldn't breathe for having the breath knocked out of me. I glanced over at Francis, who was surrounded by zombies.

There was one terrifying moment of weightlessness before I was dragged through the gaping maw in the floor and into claustrophobic, crushing blackness.


	5. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

When the smoke cleared, and the last zombie had been dropped to the concrete floor, Bill, Francis, and Louis looked around for Zoey. "I thought she was with you," Louis said to Francis as hey clambered over a pile of zombies. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called: "Zoey!"

"Maybe..." Bill cast a fearful glance to Francis and Louis. "Maybe she didn't make it."

"No," said Francis. "She was... she was here, and the horde came. If she had died, she'd still be...here..." His voice trailed off as he cast his light over the floor, and he came to a dead halt as the flashlight's beam brushed against the jagged hole in the concrete floor. He gulped and moved closer.

The flashlight beam plunged into the blackness, illuminating a single black-and-white high-topped tennis shoe.

* * * * *

Francis swung into the hole first, while Bill and Louis decided it would be best to take the stairs. Francis pulled the smoker's tongue off the girl's form and put his lips to her mouth. Her breath was weak and ragged. "Zoey," he murmured, giving her a gentle shake. She let out a whimper of distress but did not rouse.

He was investigating the girl's weak, irregular pulse when Bill and Louis arrived. "Is she...?" asked Louis.

"Not yet," said Francis. "Help me turn her over."

Bill and Louis knelt beside Zoey's form and helped ease her onto her back. Her red hoodie was torn, exposing a deep gash in the girl's pale, blemishless back. "Holy shit," said Bill. "What happened to her?"

"Probably from the rocks when she got dragged down," Louis observed.

Francis ignored them both, and instead pulled out his health kit. He opened it and pulled out a bottle of peroxide. "Sorry, doll, this is gonna sting...."

* * * * *

My first sensation after the big black maw swallowed me was pain. I tried to speak, but a string of swears spilled out. My eyes flickered open to the sounds of nervous laughter. "I think she's all right," said Louis.

I was on my side, facing Bill. He smirked down at me. "How ya feelin', kid?"

"Ouch," I muttered. "What... where are we?"

"You fell down," said Bill simply. "I think you got the wind knocked out of you. How do you feel now?"

"What happened to me? My back is killing me."

"Francis is fixing you up."

I cast a glance over my shoulder and saw Francis' eyes flick nervously up to mine. He smiled briefly before turning his attention back to my wounds. I could feel his warm hands pressing bandages onto my back. "This should stop the wound from getting infected."

Louis had wandered towards the door to the stairs that led down to the tracks. Apparently he heard the noise before I did, because he said, "We need to get moving. Now."

"Can you walk?" Bill asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Help me."

Bill and Francis each took a hand and hauled me to my feet. "My legs feel all right, but..." I took a step. "Well, we don't have much choice, do we? Let's move."

We made it midway up the stairs before I dropped to a knee. "What's wrong?" Bill demanded.

"I can't... I can't breathe," I gasped. The effects of my incapacitation were still dragging on me. "Go... just go... I'll be... fine." I panted in exertion, turning and facing the stairs, clutching Francis' shotgun. "I'll hold them off."

"Like hell," said Francis. He scooped me up almost effortlessly and threw me over his shoulder. "Come on, the door's open." And, to my surprise, he hustled up the stairs, across the engineering room, and up another flight to the security offices. He set me down on a wooden table in the center of the room.

"Barricade that door," Bill ordered Louis, and the pair of them got to work moving the furniture into position, hopefully blocking the infected from coming through. No sooner had they moved anything not bolted down onto position than the infected began pounding on it.

"We've got a minute, maybe two," said Louis. "You all right, Zoey?"

"I hurt all over," I muttered, trying—and I'm sure, failing—not to sound like I was whining. "But whatever. Let's go." Louis led the way into the office hallway. We found a small cache of supplies, and the boys filled up on ammo and a few incendiaries.

"Looks like a saferoom in that pawn shop," said Francis, peering out the grimy window. He pointed down the street at the only storefront with lights still on. "We can make it there and then rest up for a little while."

"We have to hurry. That barricade isn't going to last long," Bill warned as we rounded a corner and took a set of stairs down to street level. I tried to ignore the stitch in my side as I pushed the shattered glass door open.

A sickening crash told us that the barricade had fallen. "Get moving," Bill shouted, shoving me towards Francis. "I'll hold 'em off."

"Bill!" I shouted, torn between wanting to run and not wanting to leave a member of the team behind.

"Don't worry kid," he said, pulling a pipe bomb from his belt. "I've got a secret weapon."

Francis, Louis, and I ran down the street, waiting for Bill to catch up. Suddenly I heard the beep-beep-beep of the pipe bomb, and the infected raining down from the windows of the building we had just left were diverted.

Bill came running alongside the crashed semi that the rest of us had just passed. "Look out for that car," Louis said. "Looks like the security is armed."

Francis threw a hand up and we stopped in time to hear an enraged roar. There was a Tank heading right for us from inside the pawn shop. "Watch out," he warned. The Tank saw us, leapt over the car, and went straight for us.

"Move," Louis said, grabbing my arm. We ran to our left as I heard Francis' shotgun belch eight times in rapid succession. The Tank roared in anger and gave Francis a wallop that hurt to even _watch_. Francis flew into Bill, and they both tumbled.

Louis and I were almost to the safehouse when the Tank dropped in front of the doorway to the pawn shop. Louis opened fire, and I tried to remember where the safety was on my gun. We backed up as the Tank advanced. I finally had the safety off on my gun.

"Zoey, watch out!" Louis warned.

I looked up. The Tank had its arm raised to deliver a vicious punch to me. Louis was fumbling to reload his Uzi. I took a half-step back and fired my shotgun into the Tank's face just as he began his strike.

The kick of the shotgun threw me back a few feet into the car, shattering the glass in the passenger side window and causing a wave of pain to run through me. The alarm shrieked. "Oh bullshit," I moaned and sank to my rear end on the pavement, just as the Tank's hulking form collapsed on the ground, apparently dead.

"They're coming!" I heard Bill shout. Francis jumped onto the car, slid across the hood and dropped down next to me. "Get up, we've gotta move!" Bill shouted over his shoulder as he jumped through a broken window into the pawn shop.

"There's a safehouse just inside," Francis told me, jerking me to my feet. I followed after him, quickly filing into the saferoom just as the horde that the car alarm summoned began pouring into the pawn shop.

"Secure that door!" Bill barked. Louis slammed it shut and dropped the steel bar into place. The zombies pounded insistently on the door. Exhausted, I dropped onto a crate and rested my back against the cold wall.

"I want to go home," I murmured to nobody in particular.

The zombies were at the door, and we still had a ways to go to the evac at Mercy Hospital, but for the time being, at least we were safe. I closed my eyes and tried to will away the pain.


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

I sat with my back against the cold concrete, cradling the shotgun in my lap while I tried to ignore the sounds of the infected outside. I was sore all over, from the bruise on my shoulder where the kick of the shotgun had impacted, from the scrapes on my back and side.

As if reading my thoughts, Francis crouched next to me with a bottle of pain reliever, murmuring, "Nobody said the zombie apocalypse was going to be easy. Here." He shook two huge pills out into my hand and then offered me a bottle of water.

"Where'd you get this?" I asked, breaking the seal on the water bottle and unscrewing the lid.

"Some supplies in here," Francis said, pointing towards the corner. Bill was eating a can of pork and beans with the bent can top, and Louis was draining a bottle of cola. "You want anything? You shouldn't take that stuff on an empty stomach."

I looked up at him and brushed his chin with my fingertips, wiping away what looked like tomato sauce. "What did you have?"

"Spaghetti-Os," Francis admitted sheepishly, wiping his chin. "Did I get it all?"

"Yeah. Got any canned ravioli?"

I stood up and joined Bill and Louis at the crate, kneeling at the side of the makeshift table. "Let me see your John Wayne," Francis said to Bill. Bill handed him a keychain of some kind, which Francis used to open a can of ravioli.

"Thanks," I told Francis as he handed me the can. I used the lid as a sort of spoon to scrape ravioli from the can. I didn't realize how ravenous I was until I got to the bottom of the can and then held the can up to drink the tomato sauce.

When I lowered the can, the three men were looking at me, Louis with his eyes wide and his jaw slack. "What?" I asked quietly. "You've never seen a girl eat?"

"I thought I had," said Louis.

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and stood up, slinging the shotgun over my shoulder. "Can we get going now?" I asked, then threw back the pills and washed them down with a bottle of water. I tucked the water into my belt and turned back to the guys.

"Do you know where we are?" Francis asked Bill, standing at the door, looking out into the night.

"No idea. We're not going to find out hanging around in here, though. Let's move."

Bill kicked the door open and we found ourselves prowling into an alley. The dawn was coming; the night was beginning to lighten into morning. "Do you think we can reach Mercy by morning?" I asked. For some reason, I wasn't wild about the idea of prowling through the city during the day. At night, it was just dark enough to pretend that the piles of darkness at every corner were rubble and not corpses.

"Burger Tank," said Louis, pointing off to the left. "Looks like we're near the waterworks."

"Does that mean we're near the New City sewers?" asked Francis as we pushed along the alleyway.

I could smell rancid frier grease and was reminded of my first summer job at a Burger Tank nearer to my apartment. It was definitely a Burger Tank we were approaching. Bill shrugged as he shouldered the door open and led the way into the storage room of the Burger Tank.

"I don't know this area. I'm not a big Burger Tank fan," said Bill. We walked through the kitchen and into the dining room. I knew what the sickly sound was before we came upon the trio of zombies feasting upon the flesh of a corpse. Bill quickly dispatched them with his handgun.

"There's the hospital," I said, pointing out the dirty plate glass window. Mercy Hospital towered just beyond the wall of warehouses in front of us. "We must be at the waterworks off Turtle Street. That's just a few blocks from Broad Avenue, where the hospital is."

"We're not going to get into the city that way," Louis said, pointing towards the street. It seemed that the entire area was surrounded by barricades.

"Lot of good these things did 'em," Bill said quietly, kicking the barricade. "The zombies can climb over 'em. They just slowed down the non-infected. Now look what happened."

"Look," said Francis, pointing his flashlight over towards a series of trucks lined up at the warehouse. "There must be doors if they're unloading freight." We followed Francis over and he hauled himself up onto the concrete loading dock. A corrugated metal door stood on his left. He tried the button on the side panel, but nothing happened.

After Francis shot the panel to small pieces, the door still wouldn't budge. "It's probably electric," said Louis. "And the power's out, except for emergency power. There's some windows above us. What if we took that scissor lift up to the roof and broke through the window there?"

"Sounds like as good a plan as any," Bill conceded. "Hustle. It's too quiet."

I was debating the merits of telling Bill that zombies weren't physically capable of planning an ambush, but I decided to leave it alone. Francis jumped the rail into the lift, helped me on, and pointed me towards the controls. "Hit it!" he told me once the others were on the lift.

Jerking the control stick back, the lift launched upwards, its disused metal squealing in protest. In response, a massive shriek sounded from the surrounding area. Every zombie in a five block radius was coming for us.

"Sorry," I called to the boys.

"No other way," Louis said sympathetically.

A hundred zombies poured over the fence, through the windows of the building opposite, or from over the building we were trying to climb up. I drew my pistols and began to fire, hoping to make a dent in the horde.

"Fire in the hole!" Bill shouted, throwing a pipe bomb from the lift as I stopped it at roof level. We all climbed off the lift and began to cross the roof towards the huge, broken windows across the plaza, but when Bill said, "Shit" we all stopped to see what the problem was.

The red, flashing light was doing its job by distracting the zombies, but its location was problematic. It was lodged between a concrete pole and a gasoline pump in the Grab-n-Go. "Run," Francis said, shoving me. Louis and I started off headlong down the roof, followed by Francis and Bill.

The searing heat of the explosion threw me fat to the roof, Louis beside me. After scrambling to his feet, Louis helped me up and we climbed through the shattered window. I turned to help Bill up, then Francis. "Look out, they're coming," I said, pointing behind them to the flaming ruins of the gas station. The zombies were staggering around on fire, while some of them who had escaped ruin by not running fast enough were scrambling up the roof.

"We need to move," said Bill. "We can't take them on ourselves."

"Look," said Francis, pointing to a hole in the floor. I looked over and saw a semi-destroyed office below. Without waiting for agreement—probably because the zombie horde was almost pouring into the storage room in which we stood—Francis dropped down into the hole, standing on the desk. He reached up for me.

Now was no time to stand on women's lib. I shoved the pistols back into their holsters and reached for Francis. He helped me down and Bill and Louis came next. The gnashing, snarling zombies were swarming above us. "Go go go," said Bill. We burst into a hallway and nearly tumbled down a flight of stairs into a huge warehouse.

"A door, over there," I said, pointing maniacally.

"Go," said Francis. "But first." He grabbed my arm and pulled me close. I wondered what he was doing, my face contorting in a question that he answered by pulling the molotov cocktail from my belt. He touched it to Bill's cigarette and the rag went up, then threw it at the door we had just come through. It bounced off the door and fell on the concrete floor, shattering in a storm of flames.

"Good thinkin', Francis," Bill growled. "But never screw with my cigarette."

We fought our way down the alleyway outside the warehouse and into another building, engaging the occasional confused zombie. Ten minutes, eight short flights of stairs, and two dozen zombies later, we were standing around an open manhole.

"No," I said, folding my arms. "We need to find another way. "

"There _is_ no other way," Louis argued, folding his arms, too. "It's a dead end. Except for the sewer."

"Two minutes in the sewer and we'll be out of this apocalypse," Bill reasoned. He shrugged. "Sounds like a fair trade to me."

"C'mon, Zoey." Francis draped an arm across my shoulder. "You're a tough broad. Let's just do this thing."

"Ugh," I said, trying to ignore the smell coming up from the sewer. "Fine. But when this is over, I'm never going into a sewer again. Do we have a deal?"

"Only if you move now." Bill nudged the manhole cover aside with his foot and slowly eased himself down. "Careful," he called up to us. "Bit of a drop."

Both Francis and Louis helped me down, each taking a hand and lowering me down into the sewer. My sneakers came down on the slick, slippery concrete sewer bottom. I put a hand out and seized Bill's shoulder as my already-aching ankle twisted painfully.

Louis was next, then Francis. "Ugh," he said, covering his mouth with his hand.

"I thought the subway smelled bad," I murmured, trying to ignore the smell. "Come on. Let's get the hell out of here."

"Walk on the canal edges," said Louis, hauling himself up onto the concrete berm. He gave me a hand up and Bill and Francis followed. We crept towards an emergency light that was up an incline. Under the light, a corpse lay with a hunting rifle and a pile of ammo.

"This might have a smaller kick," said Francis, his toe nudging the rifle's barrel. "Wanna trade it for your shotgun?"

I shrugged and glanced at Louis. He gestured for me to take it if I wanted it. I bent down to pick up the rifle, snagged as many magazines for it as I could, and left the shotgun. When I had slung it over my shoulder, we continued along.

Soon, we rounded a corner out of sight of the emergency light and had to flip our flashlights on. In the eerie, dripping silence of the sewer, it was difficult to imagine being rescued, to imagine surviving the mess.

A skittering sound made me throw my light to the right across the sewer canal. A moment later, I heard Louis give a shout. I spun my light back, but Louis was gone, his screams echoing across the sewer.

"Louis!" I shouted. We all played our light across the sewers, looking for a sign of him. Francis finally shouted out.

"There!" he called, splashing across the sewer and onto the opposite concrete bank. For the first time I noticed a door, and followed Francis over to it, trying to ignore the moisture threatening to overwhelm my high-top shoes.

Louis was being attacked by a smoker in what looked like a maintenance hatchway. Francis brought the butt of his shotgun up under the chin of the smoker, snapping its neck. It slumped, a cloud of smoke emanating from its mouth, and pulled Louis down with it.

I dropped to a knee by Louis and began to pull the tongue off him as Bill came into the room and closed the door. "You okay, Louis?" he demanded as I finally unraveled the tongue. Bill and Francis helped Louis to his feet.

"I'm fine," said Louis. "Those tongues... they sure are strong."

"Vent over here," said Francis, pointing to a hole in the wall where a vent had been thrown off. "Should we check it out?"

"Better than sticking around here all day," Bill said. "After you, Francis."

Francis moved in first, and I followed with my handguns drawn. Half a dozen zombies were crawling around in the muck inside the sewer. His shotgun made short work of them, and we emerged in a larger sewer. A spray-painted notice pointed towards the right.

"Is that a ladder?" I asked Francis, peering down into the darkness. A shaft of dim light shone down through a manhole.

"We're almost there!" Francis shouted, clapping me on the shoulder jovially. "C'mon, Zoey, let's get some fresh air. You two coming?"

"Right behind ya," said Bill, emerging from the vent behind Louis. We all walked to the ladder and Francis began to climb. Bill pointed me to the ladder next, and I began to climb up after him.

A moment later, my head bumped into Francis' behind, and I heard him groan. "Well shit," he said.

"What?" I asked. "What is it?"

"There's a bunch of vampires up here," he whispered down.

"They're _zombies_, Francis," I said exasperatedly, in unison with Bill and Louis.

"Whatever. Got a pipe bomb?"

I felt my belt; I only had a water bottle. "Anyone got a pipe bomb?" I murmured down to Bill and Louis.

Everyone came up empty. "Shit," Francis said. This was the general consensus of everyone involved, I imagine. I sure felt like that. "We're going to have to do it the old fashioned way."

"Bullets?" asked Louis.

"Whatever, can you go? I'm getting a cramp hanging here," I said waspishly.

I wasn't prepared for the devastation that awaited me when I finally emerged from the sewer. This area had been hit pretty hard. A dozen vehicles were present, in various stages of distress and disrepair. A humvee had run into a bus, tipping the bus over. A sickeningly large puddle of blood had dried around the bus. I covered my mouth and tried not to vomit.

But the destruction of the vehicles, the death of so many, paled in comparison to the presence of so many zombies. They milled about, apparently oblivious to our presence—for now—and staggering every so often. Twenty seconds later, Bill and Louis had joined us and we were picking our way across the flood-lit plaza towards the emergency room of Mercy Hospital.

All it took was one zombie. It sniffed the air hungrily, turned, and gave a moan. Three nearby zombies turned and moaned. Ten more around them turned and moaned. And they all began advancing towards us.

"Go," muttered Bill. His assault rifle roared and zombies fell. That only attracted more zombies, until we were practically wading through a sea of infected. I found it more effective to holster my pistols and pull out my rifle to use as a club.

We were able to keep them at bay that way. Francis would fire his shotgun into a crowd of zombies, buying us time as we performed the deadly tango across the plaza.

"Saferoom," said Louis with palpable relief. I glanced up and saw where he was pointing: a red steel door was standing open just inside the emergency clinic. All we had to do was get through the hospital doors and over the desk.

Bill kicked the hospital doors open and then turned to mow down the remaining zombies. A few stragglers were lagging behind the main crowd, but there was something wrong. There was a kind of hostile groaning and growling that I didn't want to accept.

The witch was sitting in the doorway to the saferoom, sobbing her eerie sobs. "Holy shit," I panted, coming up short. "We've got a problem here."

"Cover me," Francis said, shoving me back towards the door. I fired my pistols into the zombies approaching from the outside, keeping one ear open as the witch's moans got more and more hostile.

"Francis, be careful," I called.

Francis' shotgun roared, and I turned in time to see the witch's brain explode all over the opposite wall. "She's down," Francis shouted over the sound of our gunfire. "Can we get in here now?"

We backed into the saferoom, blowing away every zombie that tried to follow us. Francis and Louis barred the door and then we all looked around at our surroundings.

"The good news is, we're almost there," said Louis uncertainly.

I sank onto the floor with my back to the wall. "I'm so tired. Can we stay the night here and find the evac in the morning?"

"One hour," said Bill, sliding easily into his leadership role. "Rest up, because we leave in one hour."


	7. Chapter Six

**A/N: **Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed so far. As is usually the case, 'real life' caught up with me since last time I as able to update, but I've been plugging away-slowly but surely-at this and a few other projects. I hope you all enjoy and will stick with it as the story continues!

**Chapter Six**

I jerked awake, blinking sleep from my eyes and reaching for my gun. I wasn't sure what woke me until I heard the same sound again: an odd, tinny _plink_. I looked around and saw that I had slumped against a vending machine, and Louis was standing in front of it with a handful of change. As I watched, he leaned forward to put another coin in the slot. It landed with a _plink_.

"Louis?" I asked, dragging myself to my feet. I stretched, sending a satisfying _pop_ through the room, and then stepped beside him. "What're you doing?"

"I'm dying for some Doritos," he said. "But I'm fifteen cents short. You got any change?"

I looked at him incredulously. "No, I don't have any change. Louis, what the hell?" I pushed him aside and then leaned back, putting my foot through the brittle glass of the vending machine. It splintered on the first kick and shattered on the second. I carefully reached through the ragged edges and retrieved a bag of Doritos, tossing them to Louis.

"Uh, thanks," he said. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"You're too mild-mannered," I said and helped myself to a bag of pretzels. "But go ahead and try it on the cola machine. My ankle is too sore to do that again."

Louis kicked through the front of the machine and then handed me a cola. "Thanks," I said.

Bill, who had been dozing against the cola machine, leaped to his feet. "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted, holstering his handgun. "You scared the bejesus out of me."

"Sorry, Bill. Want a cola?" Louis offered Bill the bottle just as Bill's watch alarm went off. He turned it off and reached out to take the cola. Francis snored on the sofa that we had shoved up against the door until Louis took a bottle of water and poured it over his face. He woke spluttering. "We're getting ready to move."

Francis sat up and rubbed his face with his hands. "You're getting all dirty again," I said with a chuckle. I went to the counters lining the side of the room. There was a microwave so I assumed there would be other kitchen stuff there. In the third drawer I opened I found a dozen or so washcloths of different colors. I picked a couple up and walked back over to Francis, using the wash cloth to dab at his face.

"Ouch," he muttered as I pressed against his left cheek.

"You've got a bruise there, sorry," I said, trying to be more careful. I poured a little more water onto the dishrag and scrubbed vigorously at his forehead, then down his chin. "Oops. One there, too. And in this general area," I said, waving my finger back and forth in front of his face. After a moment, I had done all I could. "There. Aside from the blood coming from your scalp and that shiner, you look almost presentable."

"What about you?"

I hadn't thought of that. Now that he mentioned it, I felt rather grimy. I would've killed for a nice hot shower, but I settled for bottled water. I used a clean wash cloth and scrubbed my face clean; Bill and Louise washed up as best they could, too. We all knew that we couldn't count on getting another chance like this any time soon.

"What do you think?" asked Bill as he lit up another cigarette and took a drag.

"I think we look almost human enough to not be shot on sight," I quipped, shouldering my rifle. "The evacuation is at the roof?"

"Most logical place," said Louis.

"The only place to help while avoiding being infected," said Francis. "If the vampires attack, the pilot can just take off with no trouble."

"Zombies," I sighed.

"What?"

"Forget it," I said, following Bill towards the door. He pulled the bar off and opened it, then stepped into a blood-spattered, turquoise-painted walls. The power was still on at the hospital, though the building seemed deserted—except, of course, for the zombies.

"Try not to disturb them," Bill said as we crept down the hallway, and he pointed to a door. I looked through the small window and saw a group of infected milling about in the hallway. The halls were lit in an eerie green glow.

I shivered. "Stay close," Francis whispered. We made it to the stairwell down the hall before our _let's sneak to the top of the hospital and not get in an ambush_ plan went to hell. A smoker snatched Louis as he drew up the rear, dragging him back the way we came, and his startled shout of alarm drew every zombie in the area rushing towards us.

"Zoey, you-" Bill said, pointing at Louis' thrashing body down the hall, but I was already in motion. "I'm on it," I shouted over the roar of the zombies.

I charged through the crowd of infected, using my hunting rifle as a club. By the time I made it to Louis, the butt of the rifle (or the stock-what did I know about guns?) was covered in gore and so was I. I hammered the smoker's skull in with the rifle and Louis collapsed. I dropped to a knee and we both coughed in the cloud of smoke.

"Don't make me leave your ass behind, Louis," I said, hauling Louis to his feet as more infected poured down the hall we'd just come from. "Get up." I got him to his feet and gave him a shove towards the double-doors. I crossed the threshold a split-second before the zombies arrived there, giving Bill and Francis enough time to slam the doors shut. The slim glass window shattered as a zombie's head broke through.

"Come on," said Francis, shoving the door to the stairwell open. "Up these stairs."

"We won't get far," said Bill, pointing up the stairwell. A mess of beds, wheelchairs, gurneys and tables had blocked the stairwell. "We'll have to find another way around after this floor."

We trekked up the stairs and onto the next floor, emerging into what I thought might have been a lobby before the world went to hell. It was all horizontal stripes muted blues and whites and was stocked with vending machines and furniture that had been used to barricade the doors. There was a gift shop or cafeteria halfway down the wall on the right. There was nothing useful inside, though, so we kept moving.

Against the far wall, a set of wide stairs led up to a balcony walkway. We moved along the railing and through what might have been an administrative or reception area. The file cabinets had been upended and the computer monitor was broken.

"We can get back up the stairs here," said Louis, pointing towards the entry to the stairwell. We entered the stairwell just above the blockade that had stopped our progress below and crept up the stairs until we reached the top. Louis sighed, "Damn, this is as far as we go."

"I'm sick and tired of these goddamn stairs anyway," Bill grumbled and kicked the door open. We walked out into a long green hallway. A sign nearby read: "Elevator" with an arrow pointing to the right.

"Score," said Louis.

As we picked our way down the hallway, with its ugly green paint and depressing art prints, it was all I could do to stop myself from looking in the hospital rooms. The few I looked in were littered with corpses, with blood splattered across the walls and furniture.

"What happened here?" I asked, finding my eyes water. What was it about this hospital that brought the scope of this tragedy to the front of my mind? I felt a warm hand on my bicep and turned to see Francis pulling me to his side for a one-armed embrace. "Sorry," I whispered, brushing my cheeks lightly, embarrassed that I had been the first to go soft.

"People came here for help. They didn't know that they were getting themselves into," he said quietly, shaking his head. "Hindsight is always 20/20, I guess, but if things ever do go back to normal I guess hospitals will change."

"Everything will change," said Bill quietly. "Come on, through here."

We reached a nursing station that must have doubled as some sort of administration center; this was evidenced by a sign on the door to our right as we pushed through wide metal double-doors into the wards. The sign read: Dr. Rachel McAllister, Chief of Staff.

To say that this had been ground zero for the Fairfield infection would have been an understatement. The halls were riddled with corpses and the odd shuffling zombie which were easily dispatched. The rooms were covered in blood, with bodies festering on the beds. Quarantine tape that had once held sterile plastic over the doors lay in pieces or stretched ineffectually across the doorways to empty rooms.

"Ugh," Bill grunted. "I know I should glad they're dead and not trying to eat us, but damn."

I commiserated. The smell of decomposing flesh overwhelmed me, but there was nothing to be done. "Let's just move quickly," I suggested. "The elevator's that way, I think..." I pointed off to the left.

"Good guess," Louis said as we reached the T-intersection. "Is it still powered? Please say yes."

"One way to find out," said Francis. "I'm guessing no, but-" He hit the key, and immediately heard the sounds of machinery. "Holy shit, we're finally catching a break."

"Don't jinx it," I muttered, helping myself to a few clips of ammo from the bed near the elevator. I took the time to reload my pistols.

"Don't jinx it, she says," said Francis, rolling his eyes with a smirk. "What does jinxing it mean, anyway?"

And then we heard it: the blood-chilling scream of the infected in the distance. "_That's_ what it means," I spat, looking around for somewhere to go. But it was too late; by the time we knew the zombies were coming, they were already there, pouring out of the vent right in front of us, streaming in from the doorways and the hallway farther in the distance.

I opened fire with my pistols a split-second after Bill's rifle began spitting, and with all four of us it seemed we were barely making a dent. "Someone throw a molotov!" Bill ordered, and I reached for my belt. I lit the thing and threw it, but at the last second something long and dark wrapped around Bill's foot and dragged him down the hall.

It was too late to stop my throw, and now there was a wall of fire between Louis, Francis and I battling the horde at the elevator, and Bill, who had been dragged into the operating room at the other end of the hall.

"We've gotta help him," Louis shouted over the din.

"We're comin', Bill!" I shouted, ready to action-hero my way over the flames to help the man who had led us this far.

At that moment, the walls on both sides of us crumbled, and dozens of zombies swarmed through. "Guys!" I shouted before being dragged to the floor by a hunter. The noise of the zombies was too loud; I was sure that no one would hear me and they wouldn't get to me before it was too late.


	8. Chapter Seven

**A/N: We have a guest narrator today! Chapter 7 is told from Francis' point of view. **If there's ever a change in point of view, I will put the person's name in italics to indicate it. Please read & review.

**Chapter**** 7**

_Francis__ Dixon_

"Well shit."

It was inelegant, I know, but look at me. 1992 called and wants its black jeans back. Wifebeater and a leather vest. I have _tattoos_, for Christ sake. I'm not what you would consider eloquent, even when I'm _not_ up to my neck in zombies-which I was at the moment.

The building was on fire, Bill was on the other side of a wall of flames, and Louis and Zoey were behind me-safe, I hoped. Truth be told, they were all growing on me, even the old dude. And Zoey-well, Zoey was something to consider when this mess was over.

I was nearly covered in blood by the time there were no more zombies left to kill. Thankfully, the sprinklers had come on to deal with the fire Zoey's molotov had started, and they had nearly put out the fire, giving me a shower at the same time.

"Bill!" I shouted down the hall. There was no answer, only the sound of struggle. "Louis, can you-?"

"Yeah," he said. Louis was a good guy like that. I took off down the hall at full speed, leaping over the remaining fire and bounding in to the operating room just in time to kick the smoker's ass off Bill. He fell in a cloud of smoke and I knelt to help him up.

"Whoa," I said with a chuckle. "I thought you were hosed for sure. But I think I can get you back on your feet." Bill gave me an old-dude death glare. "Come on or I'll help you up by the beard."

"Francis, one of these days I'm gonna-"

"BILL! FRANCIS?"

The alarm in Louis' voice raised the hair on the back of my neck. Hell, even my goatee hair was on edge. We turned and saw him cradling Zoey against his chest. "Aw hell, kid," Bill gasped, and moved faster than anyone his age had any business moving. I was close on his heels, skidding to a halt at Louis' side.

"She's breathing, but she's out," said Louis.

I heard a rush of footfalls in the distance and grimaced. "Gimme," I said, seizing Zoey's form from Louis. I slung her over my shoulder as gently as I could. Bill was studying me as I stood up and stepped into the elevator. "What?" I demanded.

"Nothing, just be careful with her," Bill said, following me onto the elevator. Louis brought up the rear, slapping the 40 button. The elevator shook as it ascended through the shaft. I tilted my head, pressing my ear to Zoey's side and was relieved to hear her steady, shallow breathing.

"Jesus, how far up are we going?" I grumbled, staring at the elevator panel as if that would make it move faster. "I hate elevators."

"Yeah, well, I'll be damned if we were taking the stairs," said Bill. "I hate stairs."

"What do you hate, Louis?"

We both turned to look at Louis, who took on a thoughtful look. After a moment, he shook his head and shrugged. I sighed and muttered, "I hate that Louis doesn't hate anything."

We waited in tense silence as the elevator climbed. Finally the bell chimed and the doors opened. "This isn't the roof," I said sourly.

"No shit," said Bill. "It's uncanny the things you notice, Francis."

We crept forward, dispatching the zombies in our path. I had to use my pistols as I carefully carried Zoey. We walked along the construction zone, rain occasionally slanting in to splash against the work surface. Stormclouds had gathered over Fairfield and it all seemed a little too poetic for me.

As we rounded a corner, I heard a warning noise a little too late. The witch caught me by surprise, screaming at my intrusion in her space. "Louis!" I shouted, tossing Zoey like a ragdoll to Louis. He caught her-thank God-but the witch shoved me hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

I grappled with the freaky bitch, but I couldn't overpower her. We struggled and thrashed until we both went over the side of the building. My hand caught the rough edge of a two-by-four stud in the construction area, but she wasn't so lucky. I heard her screaming sob until it stopped suddenly thirty stories below.

"I'm in some trouble," I called to the group above. I looked up to see Bill standing there, lighting a cigarette. As he tucked his cigarette lighter back into his jacket pocket, I said, "Can I get some help?"

"Hold your horses," said Bill, crouching down. He grabbed my wrist and, with his help, I scrambled up the side of the building. "There ya go."

"Maybe it would be a good idea to stay _on_ the building." I was so relieved to hear Zoey's voice I nearly laughed out loud-until I remembered that I hated laughing out loud. "Honestly, Francis, that's Zombie Survival Guide page one."

"You may want to brush up on it," I retorted, reaching down to offer her a hand up. She put her hand in mine and I hauled her to her feet and patted her shoulders. "How'd you wake up, anyway?"

"I don't know," she said. "I guess it was the cold rain," she said, turning so we could both help Louis up off the ground. "How did I get on top of Louis? Not that I'm complaining, Louis."

"I sort of... threw you at him," I explained sheepishly. I raised a brow as Zoey's cheeks flushed a little.

"You were holding me?" she asked, looking down at her rifle to fiddle with the shoulder strap. I got the distinct impression that she was avoiding my eyes.

"I wasn't going to just _leave_ you there," I told her, turning her by the shoulder and giving her a gentle push in the direction we had been heading when the Witch interrupted me. "I hope it wasn't over the line."

"No, Francis." I glanced down as I felt Zoey's fingers wrap around my bicep and squeeze lightly as we picked out way through the construction zone. There were just a few more infected before the saferoom door was closed securely behind us. "Thank you."

"None of us would leave you for those vampires," I explained.

Three voices responded in unison: "They're _zombies_, Francis." Inwardly I smirked; these guys were too easy.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Chapter**** 8**

_Zoey__Harris_

I was cold and wet from the rain that had been blowing sideways through the exposed construction zone, but I felt better with a cold, hard steel door separating me from the metric buttload of zombies outside the saferoom. I slid down to sit with my back against the door and watched as my friends looked around the room and began to take inventory.

All except Francis.

He sat leaning against the drywall sheets that leaned against the wall to my left. His booted feet met mine at a ninety degree angle and he looked over at me. "How's it goin'?" he asked.

"I don't know, Francis. We're 30 stories up about to go up onto the roof for a rescue we don't even know is really coming," I said with a sigh, brushing my wet hair off my forehead. "I don't know, I'd say I've had better days."

"Stay positive, guys!" said Louis, hearing my pessimistic tone and apparently taking it upon himself to turn my frown upside down. "I got a good feeling about this."

"So much zombie bullshit," I muttered. "Is there anything good over there?"

"Ammo," Bill grunted. He tossed me a few magazines. They landed at my feet. "You kids gonna lay around all day, or are we gonna go get rescued?"

Francis looked at me, then stood up and pulled me to my feet by my hands. "C'mon, Zoey. It's not so bad." I sighed and picked up my magazines, stuffing them into my pockets. I kept the hunting rifle slung over my back, instead choosing my handgun, as it struck me as more manageable.

"How the hell did they all get up here?" Bill asked. I walked over to him and stood next to the other saferoom door, looking through the bars at the mass of zombies milling around outside in the stairwell. "So many..."

I shivered. "They were evacuating people off the roof," I said, remembering the photo I'd seen in the newspaper. "They were infected, and when they turned..." I shivered again, more violently, and was grateful when Francis put a warm hand on my shoulder.

"We'd better get going," he said, cocking his shotgun. Bill kicked the stairwell door open and we emerged, guns blazing. Zombie blood and brains splattered the walls, sending the poor bastards stumbling back or dropping like a bag of potatoes as their brains exploded.

Francis' shotgun blasted them away in wide swaths, clearing the stairs for us. Bill shot ahead of us, picking off zombies with quick stutters of gunfire, while Louis and I covered the rear, mopping up the leftovers with out sidearms. When we cleared the stairwell, we stepped into a long, dark hallway. A construction flood light shone on the far end. "Great," I muttered. "Creepy dark hallway. Excellent."

"Can it, kid," said Bill, flicking his cigarette butt down the hallway. "Let's move. We need to find a way up to the roof."

"Why didn't we just... take the elevator up?" Louis asked. I stared at him, eyebrow raised.

"It stopped at this floor," said Francis. "I guess the shaft is under construction. Let's just go."

I switched my flashlight on and we crept down the hall. Different rooms branched off the halls, and there were zombies milling around inside them. I shone my light into a room on my left and squeezed the trigger to put a bullet in the brain of a zombie in the doorway, then blasted away the other three. The others did the same until we reached what would have been an elevator lobby if construction ever finished.

"Bingo," said Louis. "Look, there's a ladder in the elevator shaft!"

My eyes followed his pointing finger to the yellow ladder. I saw the dark, storming sky through the hole in the ceiling. "Thank God, we're almost there," I said with a sigh of relief.

Bill was already kicking the vent cover through. He yanked the cover off and tossed it aside, then crouched and crawled through. "You're next," Francis said, yanking me by the bicep over to the vent. I didn't bother arguing, only climbed through and let Bill help me up.

"I'll go first," said Bill. "Louis, you're next. I have a feeling there's gonna be trouble."

"Right," said Louis. He followed Bill up the ladder while Louis came through the hole. "C'mon, Zoey," Louis called down to me.

I put my hand on the ladder and pulled myself up. I felt the ladder shake a little as Louis followed me up. We went up to the second platform, where another ladder led up to the roof. I walked over towards the ladder, peering up. Rain splashed down on my face. The rungs were slick with rain, so I moved a little slower behind Louis.

I heard gunfire when I reached the top, and drew my handgun in one hand as I peeked over the top. A hunter had pinned Bill to the roof near the door, but Louis easily dispatched it with a shotgun blast to the face.

"Zoey!"

Francis' shout made me look over my shoulder for him. I lost my footing on the ladder and fell, but saved myself by gripping the ladder tightly. My pistol clattered to the ground and I finally saw that Francis was hanging off the railing, his feet dangling in the abyss. The smoker's tongue was pulling him, and only his white-knuckled grip on the railing separated him from a 30-story fall to certain death.

I dropped to the ground, rolled and snatched up my pistol. "Hold on," I shouted to Francis, squeezing round after round into the smoker. It finally collapsed in a puff of smoke and Francis reached for my hand. I holstered my gun and helped him haul himself over the railing, rolling him onto the ground with my legs under his back.

"You okay?" I asked, breathing heavily as I patted his chest.

Francis looked up at me and chuckled. "I hate smokers," he finally said. "C'mon, Bill's gonna get cranky if we-"

"Quit your goddamn dallying," shouted Bill down the ladder. "Come on, we've got to move!"

Francis pulled himself off me with the railing and helped me up. "Up you go," he murmured, putting his hands on my hips and pushing me lightly up the ladder. I blushed a little and glanced down at him. He had been watching me ascend when he caught my eye, then looked down quickly.

I emerged into the pouring rain; it soaked me within ten seconds. Louis was perched near the edge of the roof. "Where's Bill?" I called over to him. Louis pointed down, then swung off the roof himself. Francis and I walked over to the edge and saw Bill and Louis crossing a crumbling helipad.

"We're saved," I breathed to Francis. "Come on."

"Careful now," said Francis, easily dropping to the platform under the ledge. He reached up for me and I gladly eased off the roof and let him help me to the ledge. We crossed the ramp together and followed Louis and Bill into the air control hut. It had clearly been the last stand of Mercy Hospital, as evidenced by the mess of corpses littered around the place.

"Zoey, get on that radio. Louis, Francis, supplies. I thought I saw some fuel up there," said Bill, pointing at a raised platform outside the window near the radio station. "I'm gonna go see if that big gun works." He pointed at the ceiling of the hut, and I nodded.

The previous operator's corpse was still in the chair in front of the radio, so I didn't bother sitting. I just leaned over the table and pushed the decomposing arm off the table, replacing it with my own as I fiddled with the receiver. Static poured out, punctuated by some other noise I couldn't identify.

Finally I steadied the frequency on the noise and almost shouted with joy when I heard it was a voice. "This is News Chopper 5, come in Mercy Hospital. I thought I saw lights at Mercy. Come in Mercy Hospital!"

I depressed the transmission button. "This is... we're at Mercy Hospital!" I shouted.

"Oh my God," the pilot exclaimed. "Survivors? How many of you are there?"

"There are four of us. Can you help us? Are you still evacuating from Mercy Hospital?" I asked.

There was a static-filled pause, then the pilot answered back. "Yeah. I'm delivering a load of survivors to the safe zone now. I should be able to make it in ten minutes."

"Okay, we'll be here," I said. "Keep us posted."

"News Chopper 5 out."

I emerged from the elevator hut and saw a pile of gasoline containers in the center of the wide lane leading back to the helipad. "Look out," shouted Louis as he tossed another gas can towards the pile. I walked over to the air conditioning unit and climbed up onto the roof where Francis and Louis were working.

"Good news, guys," I called. "A helicopter is going to be here in ten minutes."

"Score," said Louis. "We're almost out of here!"

"Told ya it'd work," said Bill, lighting a cigarette as he walked across a pair of wide pipes connecting the roof we were on to the roof of the radio hut. "Now all we've got to do is-"

At that moment, there was a horrible, bloodcurdling scream. My eyes widened and I said, "What the _hell_ was that?"

"Trouble," Francis said.

"They're comin'!" shouted Louis, pointing to the edge of the larger roof below us. I shuddered violently when I saw a massive crowd of zombies pulling themselves up and onto the roof. "Bill, where?"

Bill was already on the machine gun. The spinning mechanism began and then bullets began to spit out at the zombies. The large-caliber bullets blasted the crowds apart. "We've gotta cover him," said Francis, and we raced across the pipes to the radio hut roof.

"I don't like it," I tossed over my shoulder at Francis over the roar of my handguns as I shot the three zombies rushing out of the stairwell. "We're too exposed!"

"We'll make it work," Francis answered, crouching at the side of the roof and firing at a crowd of zombies that had been trying to crawl up. Louis stood near Bill, using his rifle as both a firearm and a club to keep zombies off Bill.

"Die, you zombie bastards!" Bill roared as his minigun spat hot lead at the zombies, tearing their groups apart. "Die!"

They kept coming and coming and I had to wonder what had attracted them and where they'd been during our fight across the city. Eventually they slowed to a trickle, allowing me to snipe at them in the distance before they got close. The concrete ran red with blood and gore, and I slumped against the air-conditioning unit nearby.

"Are you there?" came the static-filled shout from the radio below.

"The pilot," I said and made my way down the stairwell, Francis in tow. I seized the microphone and jammed down the button. "We're here!"

"I'm on my way," said the pilot. "I was in an ... incident. But it shouldn't be too much longer. I should warn you, the frequency the radio used has a tendency to attract hordes of infected. You should be prepared."

I glanced at Francis and smirked, reloading my rifle. "Thanks for the tip. What's your ETA?"

"Give me five more minutes."

"Done."

I had barely replaced the microphone on the table when the scream of the horde ripped through the air, sending a shiver down my back. "Come on," Francis said, gripping my bicep and hauling me back up the stairs. We arrived in time to see the horde pouring over the edge of the rooftop. The crowed rushed at hut, screaming.

"I really hate these things," I muttered to Francis, raising my rifle. I moved to the pipe connecting the roofs to get a better angle.

"Be careful," Francis called to me, moving to cover the ground below the pipe while I picked off the forerunners. They tumbled and were trampled under the zombies behind them, causing them to stumble. "Good thinking!" Francis shouted.

Bill let out a string of curses and I hesitated long enough to look over at him. The big gun was glowing red-hot at the end and smoking. "Damn thing overheated," Bill said to Louis, slamming the side with his palm. "Looks like we'll have to do this the old fashioned way." He raised his rifle and fired into the crowd.

Without the machine gun's suppressive assistance, the horde advanced faster and harder than before. We were forced to retreat to the high ground on top of the stairwell, Francis helping me scramble up the side of the wall by the hand just as a zombie lunged for my legs. I pulled myself to my feet and dropped by hunting rifle, choosing instead to use my dual handguns to fire into the mob of undead that were crawling up all sides of the building.

"Guys!" Francis shouted over the roar of his shotgun. "I don't think we're gonna make it!"

Louis gave a vicious kick to a zombie that had pulled itself over the edge. His foot tore the brittle bone and flesh apart, and the head went sailing while the body tumbled back into the fray below. "Damn it, Francis, get your _shit_ together," he shouted, aiming his uzi into the crowd and firing in short bursts. "We are gonna make it!"

Bill paused his firing and flicked his cigarette away before resuming. "I'll see peace on earth if I gotta kill every one of these bastards with my bare goddamn hands!" he growled.

A flash of light in my peripheral vision tore my attention to the right. "Guys!" I shouted, the relief evident in my voice. "The chopper's coming!" We were saved! Just as the zombies were beginning to overwhelm our limited ammo supply, the helicopter was here!

"Wait for it to land," Bill shouted. "Then we run, on three."

I kept firing, pausing only to reload, but the supply of zombies seemed endless. While I jammed the last clip home in my pistol, I glanced over to the helipad. The helicopter's lights flashed deliberately. "It's there! On three?"

"One..." Bill said, using his rifle like a golf club to bat a zombie off the roof. "Two... three! Jump and run!"

"What?" I demanded, but Bill was on the move already. He jumped, dropping into a roll on the roof, and came up running. Hell, if that old man could do it, so could I. I jumped off the roof, over the zombies, and landed in a roll. Perhaps I wasn't as slick as the old man, but I managed.

Francis and Louis were right behind me, Francis turning to fire into the pursuing crowd until his ammo went dry. I dropped off the hut's roof, swinging off the pipe to land in a crouch. "Zoey, you got bullets?" shouted Bill as he dropped down next to me. Francis and Louis followed, pursued by a horde that spilled off the roof with no conception for their own safety

"A few," I shouted back. He held out his hand and I tossed him the pistol. He raised it, aimed at the stack of gas cans in the middle of the alley that led up to the radio hut. A moment later, a spark from the bullet had lit the gas, so that the zombies spilling off the roof were spilling directly into the fire. "You are beautiful, talented, and charming," I shouted with a laugh back to Bill, who handed my pistol back.

We were halfway down the canyon formed by outcroppings on the roof when a massive, hulking shape dropped from the taller building to the left, landing with enough force to crack the concrete beneath its feet. "TAAAAAANK!" Louis screamed. But of course we needed no warning...

"We are so screwed," Francis said, smacking his forehead with his hand.

I raised my pistol and fired the remaining five bullets at the tank as it raced at us and screamed a curse when I heard the telltale click of an empty magazine.

Bill said simply: "Run."


	10. Chapter Nine

**Chapter****Ten**

The tank scattered us in different directions, Bill and I breaking to the right while Francis and Louis went left. They disappeared behind the large electricity box, but the tank followed Bill and I as we scrambled up the air conditioning units onto the roof on the right. The tank lunged after us and Bill pointed to the pipes, the bottom of which were being licked by flames from the fire Bill had started earlier.

I didn't need an explanation, I just ran for the pipes, crossing the fire over them. Frustrated, the tank roared at the fire separating us from him and turned to run away from us, apparently chasing the scent of Francis and Louis. "Francis!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Louis! It's after you!"

"Come on, kid. There were some guns in the cabinet down below," Bill said, pointing at the hut's roof. I followed him into the stairwell, down the stairs, and then into the radio hut again. The fire was beginning to die down, and as I peered down the alleyway through the flames, I saw Francis and Louis running across the roof, the hulking tank running behind them.

"Here ya go, kid," Bill said, rousing me from my anxious observation by nudging me with the butt of an assault rifle. I took some magazines and stuffed my pockets as Bill loaded a combat shotgun. I loaded the assault rifle and Bill and I raced across out of the hut, leaping over the smouldering zombie corpses beneath our feet.

"We have to help Francis and Louis," I shouted to Bill. I heard a roar and then a bone-crunching impact. "Oh God!"

"Go for the helicopter," Bill shouted back. "At least one of us needs to get out of this mess!"

I shook my head. "No, Bill," I said. "I'm not leaving without you guys." He looked like he was going to argue, but after a moment he just shook his head and turned towards the direction of where we'd last seen the tank. I gave chase until we reached the edge of the top part of the roof. "Down there," I said, pointing down at the lower roof.

I raised my rifle and lined up the sights, then squeezed the trigger. The bullets impacted the tank's back and left shoulder, and blood erupted from the wounds. The tank turned and roared in my direction, then took a few unsteady steps towards me. I adjusted my aim, firing at his head, but missed. The bullets went wild, only one of them grazing the side of his head.

"Shit," I spat as the tank roared and began galloping towards us.

"Now we're in it, kid," said Bill with a laugh. The tank rushed at the ladder and bounded up it in two leaps as we both opened fire. The tank reached the top and didn't seem any worse for the wear. "Run!"

I didn't need telling twice. I turned and ran across the roof; the zombie fire had gone out now, and the light rain had resumed, pelting down over both Bill and I as we ran for the helipad. "Where's Francis and Louis?" I shouted at Bill over the roar of the tank, only a few feet behind us.

"We've got more important things to worry about, kid," Bill said, turning to fire three shotgun blasts into the tank's mass, to no visible result. Bill groaned, "Why won't this thing just _die_ already?"

I raced up the ramp towards the helicopter, not knowing where else to go, with Bill just behind me and the tank just behind him. The helicopter pilot was shouting out his window for us to "hurry up!" but I couldn't see Francis or Louis anywhere.

"Francis!" I shouted as loud as I could before opening up on the tank as it rushed towards us. "Louis!"

Bill continued firing at the tank until he had to reload, during which interlude I provided the covering fire. When he had filled his shotgun with the last remaining shells and resumed firing, I turned and looked off to the side. Where were Francis and Louis? Had the tank demolished them already?

"Zoey!" Bill's shout tore my attention back to him, but I only half turned before the tank's fist caught me in the midsection and sent me tumbling through the air. I landed with a shout at the edge of the helipad, but the momentum kept me rolling. I tried to stop, to grab at something for support, but the rain-slick surface gave me no purchase, and I went sailing over the edge.

_Francis__Dixon_

As it happens, the tank and I don't really get along. But I guess you could say that for all the zombies. Yeah, zombies. I only call 'em vampires to lighten the mood, give the group a little something to smirk about. Dumb ol' Francis, doesn't know the difference between zombies and vampires. Ha.

Anyway, the tank tried to put me through a concrete wall, but I dodged. This is unfortunate, because the tank instead smashed through the wall, making part of the ceiling collapse on Louis. By the time I pulled his ass out of the rubble-him all smiles, even though his face was pretty banged up from the crumbled concrete-I could hear gunplay above us, probably on the helipad.

"We've got to help Bill and Zoey," Louis told me. No shit, Sherlock, I thought to myself and handed him one of my handguns. "Thanks, man."

"No problem. Conserve your ammo, Louis, because I don't have any spare clips." I tucked the gun into the back of my waistband and followed Louis towards the ladder we had climbed down before while evading the tank.

By the time we reached the top of the ladder, I could see Bill and Zoey were in a pitched battle with the tank on the helipad. It seemed to me that the tank was a little slower, a little more sluggish than it was chasing me and Louis. I hoped it was almost dead.

The helicopter hovered nearby, its tail lights blinking as if to say "Come on, let's get out of here."

"We're almost there," I told Louis, clapping him on the back as we jogged towards the helipad.

"Why don't Bill and Zoey just get on the helicopter?" demanded Louis.

I had considered it already. "That tank would demolish the helicopter," I said. "And it's our only way-Jesus!" I stopped in my tracks when the tank swung its hulking arm. It caught Zoey across the midsection and flung her into the air. My heart skipped a beat when I saw her slim form sail through the air and disappear from view. "Zoey!"

I took off again, Louis hot on my heels, as the tank lunged for Bill. Bill's shotgun spat lead at the tank, slowing the hulking beast's progress. I dashed up the ramp, my concern for Zoey evaporating into a full-blown rage at what the tank had done to her. "You big! Dumb! Son of a bitch!" I shouted, leaping onto the back of the tank while Bill reloaded.

The tank twisted and roared, trying to get at me, groping for the pest that was on his back. I jammed my pistl into his skull and fired the entire magazine into his brain. Halfway through the clip, the tank let out a groan, dropped to his knees, and pitched forward onto his face, throwing me off him and onto the concrete floor.

Bill nudged the hulking mass with his foot and, apparently satisfied that the tank was dead, helped me up.

"Guys, over here," shouted Louis. We turned to see Louis at the edge of the helipad, helping Zoey off the ledge. My heart constricted and I rushed to Louis' side, helping pull Zoey back onto the helipad.

_Zoey__Harris_

My fingers clasped the mesh edge of the helipad, and I felt my left wrist pop as the stress of my entire body weight was halted by my grip on the edge. "Ow ow ow," I groaned, biting my bottom lip in order to stop myself from crying. The pain was unimaginable, but it was soon drowned out by adrenaline when I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder.

"Oh _shit_," I said. I was dangling from the side of the hospital with nothing but thirty stories of air between me and what was certain death. But when I tried to cry for help, I found myself unable to make a sound above a whisper. I kicked my feet, but couldn't find purchase on anything. I was stuck.

The sound of battle intensified and I heard more footsteps; Louis and Francis, I thought. I tried to call out again, but there was no dice. The tank gave a horrific roar after a few minutes, and I felt my grip slipping. Finally, a face appeared over me.

"Louis," I whispered.

"Guys, over here," Louis called, reaching for me. His hand gripped my right forearm, then my left elbow, and he pulled. I whimpered; hot tears spilled down my cheeks, but I was so grateful at being pulled off the ledge that I could've kissed Louis. He dragged my to my knees and rested a hand on my back, but suddenly Francis was there.

"Oh shit," he said, his dark eyes softening as he saw me safe and sound.

The helicopter pilot shouted at us, "Hurry, they're coming!" Indeed, I saw a distant horde approaching from the opposite end of the roof. Francis helped me up, noticing my wince when he took my left hand.

"What happened?" he asked loudly, over the din of the helicopter blades and engine. Louis boarded first, then reached for me. I gave him my right hand and then collapsed onto the cushioned seat just inside the helicopter. Bill leaped in and Francis pulled up the rear, pulling the door closed behind him. The vehicle was surprisingly quiet after that as it zoomed away from Mercy Hospital.

"I think I dislocated my wrist," I told Francis as he knelt in front of me. As Bill started conversing with the pilot, Francis took my hand and rotated the joint. I whimpered and made to pull my hand back.

"Sorry," he said. "I think you dislocated it, too." He took my other hand and put it on his bicep. "Squeeze if it hurts," he said and took my injured hand in both of his own. His skin was warm against mine. I squeezed his bicep. "I meant once I do _this_."

With a swift motion, he jammed my hand hard and I felt an excruciating pain in my wrist and hand. Along with it was a satisfying pop as I felt my wrist pop back into place. "Ow!" I gasped, squeezing Francis' bicep as hard as I could. "Oh, that's better."

"Yeah?" He rotated my wrist a few times and then leaned down to kiss my wrist lightly, his beard prickling my skin. I turned my wrist to brush my palm against his cheek.

"Thank you," I said quietly, letting my thumb brush his beard. I felt myself inextricably drawn to him, leaning down as he moved up. My lips were inches away from his when I heard Bill whisper, "Oh _shit_." Both Francis and I turned then, me blushing at what had almost happened, him with brow furrowed in concern.

Just then, the pilot pitched forward, vomiting blood against the windshield. He then snarled and lunged at Bill. Impulse took over, adrenaline pounding in my blood as I snatched Francis' handgun and fired a bullet into the pilot's skull. He collapsed against the controls and the helicopter pitched forward.

"Oh shit," Francis said, bracing himself against the seat as an industrial landscape rushed towards us through the helicopter windshield.

Bill groped for the controls, shoving the pilot's corpse out of the way and yanking up on the stick. "This might get rough," he shouted. I braced my hands and feet against whatever I could find and closed my eyes, waiting for the impact.


End file.
